Gov't mulls 50% hog raiser insurance subsidy amid pork supply woes

The Duterte Administration is considering a 50% insurance subsidy for commercial hog raisers to address pork supply woes, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles revealed on Tuesday.

“This is just one of the proposals being studied to help the hog raisers increase the pork supply,” said Nograles in a virtual briefing.

Funds for the insurance subsidy would be sourced from the Department of Agriculture's Quick Response Fund.

The pork supply shortage was due to the African Swine Fever (ASF) wiping out four million hogs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With hogs dying and/or hog raisers forced to kill them to spare them from ASF, high pork prices ensued.

This prompted the government to intervene by setting a price cap on pork kasim and pigue at P270 per kilo, P300 for liempo, and P160 for dressed chicken per kilo for 60 days starting February 8.

The price cap policy, however, worsened the lack of pork supply since dealers and retailers went on a pork and later, chicken holiday, over a fear of accumulating more losses and gaining nothing in the process.

Employment recovery strategy

As this developed, Nograles said that the government would also draft a National Employment Recovery Strategy to create jobs and stir investments, given that the COVID-19 pandemic displaced at least five million workers based on the records of the Labor Department.

“The number of unemployed hit its peak in April [2020] at 17.6% or 7.2 million. While we have been able to reduce it to 8.7% in October [2020], a coherent national employment strategy will increase the employability and productivity of our workers, as well as provide support to existing and emerging businesses,” Nograles said.

Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez earlier said that at least 1.6 million individuals who had jobs before the COVID-19 pandemic had yet to return to work to this day, making the lifting of quarantine restrictions urgent.

President Rodrigo Duterte, however, thumbed down the proposed transition under an eased Modified General Community Quarantine protocol pending the rollout of the country’s COVID-19 vaccination program. — DVM, GMA News