Consumers in Puerto Princesa City and in Palawan were shocked anew with the sudden spike of the retail price of pork products in markets and in talipapa. From merely P240-250 kilos, retail price of pork reached P280-P300.
The sad part is that the impact of high prices is terrible on poor households.
The cause of the rising price of pork, was triggered by the shortage in supply caused by the spread of the African swine fever (ASF) in piggery farms across the country. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that the inflation for meat jumped to 17 percent since last year due to ASF-caused supply shortages.
Therefore, tight supply and logistical difficulties are considered as factors of the price increase of basic commodities.
Since the problem is a shortage in supply, the solution should be to increase supply.
The country is estimated to now have a shortfall of 400,000 metric tons of pork.While meat producers want the government to extend financial aid to the local industry to encourage hog raisers to reinvest, economists suggest reduced tariffs on pork imports to immediately supress the astronomically high retail prices.
Given that the problem is a shortage in local supply, importation presents itself as the quickest solution to address the shortage. But this is, of course, merely a stop-gap recourse; more inclusive strategies and approaches is needed to sustain local agriculture and prevent food insecurities from lingering, the way it has today.
Not only the price of pork products are increasing but other basic commodities as well. Barely few week ago, we have observed that the demand for food, drinking water, LPG, fuel, solar-powered lamps and power banks, among others, has soared in the wake of typhoon Odette. Queues at groceries and supermarkets, gasoline stations, water-refilling, banks and ATM in commercial centers.
Prices of basic commodities have doubled, or tripled, after the onslaught of Odette, which devastated several many areas in the country including Palawan.
In economics’ lens, we could say that the law of supply and demand is really at work this time. The prices of goods increase when supplies become limited and inadequate; the prices fall if the product’s supplies increase. The price rises when the demand increases; the price drops when the demand decreases.
We have local hog growers in the locality, however, demands in Metro Manila forced the local prices to spike.
Several food security summits have been conducted in the past yet no ultimate solution has been reached to ensure food sufficiency and food security. Local governments across the country has been required to craft their localized food security plans. Various national government agencies on their part, have poured billions and millions of pesos, along with other sizeable resources in implementing
programs and projects to address agricultural supply. We hope that they shouldn’t limit to those issues, but should also concede and understand the larger, more significant picture long unaddressed but once more emphasized by the latest round of agonizing inflation: How to make our country self-sufficient enough in food that it wouldn’t have to scuttle for imports, begging and be at the mercy of foreign suppliers whenever natural calamities, emergencies and hostile conditions threaten the nation’s food supply.
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