DA: Chicken supply to normalize next month

MANILA, Philippines - Supply of chicken in Metro Manila and other parts of the country will normalize by next month, Department of Agriculture (DA) officials said yesterday.

“Supply is tight but there is no shortage. Children should be able to continue to enjoy Chicken Joy,” Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told the House appropriations committee chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab during a budget hearing.

Alcala was referring to a product of a popular fast food chain.

“Typhoon Glenda disrupted the flow of supply in Metro Manila and Southern Luzon, but we have already talked to stakeholders who promised to address the disruptions,” he said.

The Ungab committee conducted a hearing on the proposed P51-billion DA budget for next year.

Several committee members claimed that there is chicken shortage, which they said has driven retail prices from P120 to P140 per kilo.

Jose Reaño, DA undersecretary in charge of poultry production, said Glenda, which hit the country in mid-July, damaged many broiler farms in Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, Sorsogon and other parts of Southern Tagalog and the Bicol region.

He said it would take about a month from the time the typhoon hit for chicken growers to repair poultry houses and other infrastructure.

“And it would take 31 days for them to grow broilers again to marketable size. That means supply should normalize by next month, or at the latest, October,” he said.

The popular fast food chain has denied it was facing a chicken shortage problem.

Rosendo So, president of Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, said even in the wake of Typhoon Glenda, local chicken producers “have been managing just fine in catching up with their quotas.”

He said although an estimated 15 million heads of broilers were affected, this has little effect on supply.

“The industry produces 68 million heads a month. That means that the affected portion is just a small percentage of total production,” he said.

So added that the Metro Manila truck ban has also limited chicken supply in the metropolis.

During the appropriations committee hearing, Alcala also said the country “is now 96 percent self-sufficient in rice.”

He said annual consumption is estimated at 12.9 million tons, while supply stands at 12.4 million, or a difference of 500,000 tons.

Last year, he said the National Food Authority imported half a million tons to fill the gap in production.

In his State of the Nation Address last July 28, President Aquino announced that the country would be importing 500,000 tons of rice this year.

His critics claimed the announcement resulted in higher import costs in the world market and higher retail prices in the local market, since traders took advantage of the perceived shortage of supply.

But Alcala said Aquino’s statement “stabilized prices, because traders knew that the government would boost local supply with imported rice.”