With the increasing price of poultry brought on by high demand and low poultry production, the Philippines Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) has put in place interventions following regular consultations with industry stakeholders.

According to BAI OIC-Director Reildrin Morales, BAI has lined up interventions with the aim to increase production, and to stabilise supply and market price.

Among the measures being undertaken is allowing inter-island movement from mainland Luzon of day-old chicks, hatching eggs and ready to lay pullets. For day-old chicks and hatching eggs, movement is allowed provided they test negative for avian influenza 28 days from the date of sample collection. For ready-to-lay pullets, movement is allowed provided they test negative for avian influenza 14 days from the date of sample collection.

Aside from this, BAI determines the actual supply scenario by working closely with partners from the private sector in regularly validating the broiler life cycle model.

To address the high cost of agri inputs, Morales added that DA executives will be conducting dialogues with other countries on possible alternative sources of cheaper feed ingredients.

On other disease concerns, the BAI has already issued special import permits for needed vaccines in order to support disease prevention on other poultry diseases such as Infectious Body Hepatitis (IBH).

Lastly, the DA has already lifted the temporary ban for poultry products coming from Spain, Denmark, Czech Republic.

According to Morales, the increase in demand was caused by the opening of markets, including hotels and restaurants, now that pandemic restrictions are more relaxed.

Moreover, with the economy slowly opening up and creating job opportunities, more consumers have purchasing power to buy meat for their families.

“The uneven demand-supply situation may also be attributed to the restrictions in movement of live birds, poultry products and by-products due to avian influenza cases in some areas,” Morales said.

The BAI has also monitored a decrease in the volume of production due to high cost of feed inputs along with challenges on other Hepatitis. These could also be attributed to stunted growth of poultry birds.

Last week, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced that his administration’s priority is the increase of production of the country’s major staples, including corn, which is consumed as food and animal feed.

Corn became especially important as feed wheat supplies were cut off, said Marcos.

“This season, the corn growers were able to come together and provide sufficient feed for the broiler production," he added.

As such, support will be given to industry stakeholders to ensure steady production of poultry and supply of chicken.