Drop in chicken farmgate price could hurt growers, solon says
MANILA – Farmgate price of chicken has been reduced from P54 to P52 a kilo due to the proliferation of imported chicken parts in the market, Agham Party-list Rep. Angelo Palmones said.
Palmones said this would surely have a bad effect on local poultry growers who would lose large amount of money in selling their chicken.
He called the attention of the Department of Agriculture to act on this immediately and protect the Filipino farmers.
In baring the rampant importation of chicken parts that flood the local supermarkets, the partylist lawmaker said that such chicken wings and legs are discarded in foreign countries because it is through these parts that chicken are injected.
“We buy and eat these rejected parts. They are even frozen for three months before they are sold in the markets; so the freshness is not there,” he said.
He added that even eggs from countries with avian flu are imported into the country.
Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay, another guest in the forum, said that these imported chicken parts also started selling in the duty-free shops in Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales. However, she added that such sales had been long banned.*PNA
