The Department of Agriculture assured the country has enough supply of food including rice, meat and poultry products.
“According to the data of (the) National Rice Program, our production plus the imports and the beginning stock, we are sufficient. But as far as our National Rice Program is concerned, production is high. That is good news, we have more local production; we also have importation as augmentation but the bottomline is we are sufficient,” Agriculture Asec. and spokesperson Kristine Evangelista said.
She said there is also enough meat supply in the country.
“Right now, our pork meat is also sufficient but we continue to talk with our stakeholders. On a monthly basis, we have a price and volume watch so that we can see our supply situation,” Evangelista said.
“We vet all that data with the stakeholders to see our sufficiency and to strategize with them how we can attain food security,” she added.
Evangelista said the supply situation of poultry products is also good.
“We are very sufficient. So we need to see how to help our stakeholders and also find a way that our priority is always our local produce and watch the price,” she said.
“Because sometimes, supply is not the only trigger of importation, it is the market price as well. So the bottleneck for the right price of the product to the consumer is something that we are trying to address,” she added.
Evangelista also expressed hope that local meat suppliers can meet the market demand.
“It’s a matter of really making sure that the demand situation is very clear as far as our stakeholders are concerned so that they know how much they will produce, not only when it comes to pork but also when it comes to chicken,” she said.
“So now more than anything, we are really emphasizing the relevance of data, the relevance of price and volume watch not only of the DA but also with our stakeholders.” – PNA
