The Importance Of Pork In The Philippines

Pork is the all-time Filipinos’ most preferred animal meat product and a good source of protein. It is a very important livestock commodity in the country. Over the past decade, pork has consistently represented more than 55% of the total daily animal meat consumption of the Filipinos (PCAARD, 2014). Being the most preferred meat, it brings the swine industry as one of the most important among local animal industries in the country. The importance of pork in the country is well demonstrated by a developed, stable, and rapidly growing local swine industry. Consequently, the industry provides income to entrepreneurs who are actively engaged on it and employment to farm laborers. In local swine industry, small farmers are benefited through additional income and financial security derived from small-scale swine raising activities. This industry also provides employment in slaughterhouses and storage and processing plants. In other sector of agriculture such as corn, rice, root crops and coconut, the swine industry is one of the markets of those crops in line with the feed mill production (PCAARD, 2014). However, as of January 1, 2014, Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, Philippines reported that there has been a decline of swine population from 11.84 million head to 11.80 million, 0.30 percent lower. The backyard farms which contribute to 65 percent of stocks is the diminishing factor of the swine population, it is 1.21 percent lower from its previous output. But, opposite