ILOILO City – Western Visayas, which now has African Swine Fever (ASF) cases, is the country’s second largest hog producer next to Calabarzon.
Based on the Western Visayas Hog Situationer provided by the Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 6, the inventory as of July 1, 2022 showed the region with 1,166,400 hog heads, of which 89.1 percent or 1,039,296 are produced by backyard farms while 10.9 percent or 127,104 are from commercial farms.
In Region 6, Iloilo is the second largest swine producer at 29.46 percent with a total of 339,979 hog heads while Negros Occidental ranked first with 472,600 hog heads or 41.88 percent.
The province of Capiz came in third with 10.98 percent (130,091 hog heads), followed by Aklan at 9.10 percent (106,147 hog heads), Antique at 6.52 percent (76,079 hog heads), and Guimaras at 2.06 percent (23,250 hog heads).
Oton town in Iloilo province logged the first confirmed case of ASF.
Data also showed that Iloilo province ranked second in terms of commercial and backyard inventory. As of the said date, Iloilo has 285,396 backyard hogs and 58,180 hogs produced by commercial farms.
A commercial farm is a farm or establishment/enterprise that raises livestock and poultry animals. It must satisfy at least one of the criteria – tending at least 21 heads of adult and zero head of young; tending at least 41 heads of young; or tending at least 10 heads of adults and two heads of young.
All livestock and poultry raisers that did not satisfy the said criteria are considered backyard farm.
Data further showed that the 2022 projected volume of production of Western Visayas is 204,103.12 metric tons, an estimated 78,329.38 metric tons of which are for Iloilo.
For the third quarter of this year, the projected production is 51,931.71 metric tons for the whole region and 19,972.33 metric tons for Iloilo, while fourth quarter’s projected production is 54,057.09 metric tons for the whole region and 20,479.47 metric tons for Iloilo.
In 2021, as to the pork sufficiency, the whole region hit 284 percent sufficiently.
For this year, the projected sufficient level of Iloilo is 359.20 percent following the 23,085.30 metric tons consumption (demand); 82,923.50 metric tons net food available (supply) and a surplus of 59,838.20 metric tons.
Meanwhile, from January to December 2021, the total live hog heads shipped from Western Visayas to other regions in the country had reached 226,428 heads./PN
