Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr (Courtesy: Department of Agriculture)
The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) is urging the government to immediately restore higher tariffs on imported pork and suspend additional imports for at least 120 days.
SINAG executive director Jayson Cainglet said the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) proposal to raise pork import tariffs through the Tariff Commission (TC) falls short because the process could take months while hog raisers continue to lose money.
“The clock is ticking. Our hog raisers are losing money. The industry cannot wait,” Cainglet said in a statement.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. on Saturday said the DA is pushing for the restoration of a 40-percent tariff on imported pork and a two-month pork importation holiday to help local hog raisers recover from falling farmgate prices.
He said the measures are intended to protect local producers from what he described as unfair competition from imported pork and give hog raisers an opportunity to recover from mounting losses.
“It is unfair for our producers to suffer losses because of unfair competition,” Tiu Laurel said in a message to the hog-raising industry dated October 22.
He said the proposed tariff increase and import holiday are among the measures the DA is pursuing in response to the continuing decline in farmgate prices, which threatens the income and livelihoods of hog-raising families.
Tiu Laurel acknowledged that some of the measures require approval from other agencies, including the Tariff Commission, but said this would not stop the DA from pursuing solutions for the industry.
SINAG is asking President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to issue two executive orders restoring the 40-percent out-quota and 30-percent in-quota tariffs on imported pork and temporarily suspending additional imports.
The group wants the suspension to last at least 120 days, or until local hog producers recover sufficiently and market conditions support a sustainable recovery.
Cainglet said delayed tariff restoration would allow imported pork to retain a price advantage, further depressing domestic farmgate prices, which currently a range of P80 to P130 per kilo ex-farm, further worsening losses for local hog raisers.