Philippine pig, poultry sectors maintain growth in 2016

The latest statistics published by the Philippine government revealed that poultry and pig production in the country continued to develop in 2016.

photo by Andrea Gantz | Flickr.com
photo by Andrea Gantz | Flickr.com

The latest statistics published by the Philippine government revealed that poultry and pig production in the country continued to develop in 2016, although natural disasters reduced agricultural output overall.

Typhoons reduced Philippine agricultural production

Catastrophic weather events adversely affected crops and fisheries, which contribute around 51 and 16 percent respectively, to the value of national agricultural and fisheries output, according to the annual report, “Performance of Philippine Agriculture, October-December 2016” from the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA). As a result, overall production from farming and fisheries was down by 1.4 percent in 2016 compared to the previous year, which is attributed mainly to reduced harvests of rice and corn (maize).

“The contraction of our agriculture performance was due to the series of natural calamities in our agri areas,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol told the Philippine Star. “We had consecutive natural calamities particularly in the fourth quarter. We had [typhoons] Karen and Lawin and the most recent was Nina in December.”

Philippines produces more pork

The PSA report included data on the poultry and livestock sectors.

Overall, in local currency at constant prices, the Philippines’ livestock subsector expanded by almost 4.6 percent in 2016 compared with the previous year. With the exception of goat meat, where there was a marginal reduction in output in 2016, all subsectors contributed to the overall growth.

Within the livestock sector, pig production achieved the highest annual rate of growth of 5.25 percent to achieve output of almost 2.32 million metric tons – up from 2.12 million metric tons in 2015.

Average farm-gate prices for hogs fell by almost 3.0 percent over the most recent 12-month period for the second successive year to average PHP94.64 (US$1.90) per kilo in 2016. 

Poultry sector grew 1.4 percent for the year

The output of the Philippine poultry sector reached a value of almost 123.5 billion pesos (PHP; US$2.49 billion) in 2016, up from nearly PHP121.8 billion (US$2.45 billion) in 2015.

Poultry accounts for just over 15 percent of the country’s total output of agriculture and fisheries products by value. The largest sub-sector is chicken meat, which increased just 0.82 percent from 2015 to 1.675 million metric tons (mt) last year.

Compared to 2015, production of eggs from chickens and ducks also grew, reaching 461,720mt and 44,160mt, respectively in 2016. Compared to 2015, these figures represent increases of 3.9 and 4.1 percent for chickens and ducks, respectively.

The one poultry subsector that appears to be decline is duck meat. Output has been on a downward trajectory, registering a reduction of 1.9 percent during 2015, and a further 5.1 percent fall in 2016 to just under 44,200 mt.

For the poultry sector overall, average farm-gate prices were 2.3 percent higher in 2016 than in the previous year. Compared with poultry meat, egg prices rose faster, registering increases of 4.3 percent for chicken eggs and 3.9 percent for duck eggs.

Having fallen on average 4.7 percent in 2015, chicken meat prices at the farm gate were 1.6 percent higher in 2016 at PHP89.27 (US$1.80) per kilo. Duck meat reached PHP83.65 (US$1.68) for the year, a price increase of just over 0.1 percent.

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