Published October 12, 2016 11:41am
Updated October 12, 2016 1:58pm
By TED CORDERO, GMA News
The Philippines is self-sufficient when it comes to hog and poultry production, the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) said Wednesday.
“In terms of poultry and hogs production, we are self-sufficient so we can assure that pork and chicken sold in markets are produced locally,” Ma. Elizabeth Callanta, chief meat inspection officer of the NMIS, said in a press conference in Quezon City.
Philippine hog production reached 2.120 million metric tons in 2015, up 4.33 percent from 2.032 million MT a year earlier, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.
Chicken production totaled 1.660 million MT, up 5.67 percent from 1.571 million MT in 2014.
“We are even exporting poultry to Japan. Ganun din sa hog industry. So ‘yun ang dalawang animal commodities na maganda ang ating production,” Callanta noted.
The Philippines imported 183,530 MT of pork valued at $367,727.32 and 161.041 million kilograms of chicken meat valued at $170.812 million in 2015.
Imported meat products are used for meat processing, because local slaughter houses don’t have the capacity to supply what meat processors need.
“The kinds they need for processing are not available in volume here, because the Filipinos buy meat kasama ‘yung skin, fat. Tayo hindi naman inaalis ‘yung fat. ‘Yung processors they only need the fat,” Callanta said. — Ted Coredro/VDS, GMA News