DA: No price hikes on agri products seen during holidays

The Department of Agriculture (DA) believed that there would be no significant price increases on agricultural commodities during the Christmas holidays, a time when demand is usually high due to holiday-related feasts.

“Hindi po. Hindi natin in-expect ‘yan dahil maganda ang supply natin because of the stability of our local production plus tuloy tuloy ang additional na imports na pumasok na po at papasok,” DA spokesperson Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa said at the Saturday News Forum in Quezon.

(No. We are not expecting price hikes since the supply looks good because of the stability of our local production plus the continuous arrival of imports.)

For meat, particularly pork and chicken, de Mesa said local production looked promising.

For pork alone, the DA official said an additional 300,000 metric tons were to be produced in this quarter alone.

“Sa manok wala tayong problema, actually mataas ang local production,” de Mesa said.

(For chicken, we won’t have a problem because the local production is high.)

For rice, the DA official said prices remained stable since the retail price caps on well-milled and regular-milled varieties were lifted. — DVM, GMA Integrated News