The government expects poultry production to grow faster this year, even as at least one industry group sees dampened demand amid the economic slowdown.The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), an agency of the Agriculture department, projects a 5.4% output growth this year, buoyed by more chicken layers and breeders, BAI Director Davinio P. Catbagan said in an interview over the weekend.
The poultry sector, which accounts for 14% of total agriculture output, managed to grow 4.71% last year from 0.22% in 2007 and a 0.37% production decline in 2006, data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) show.
The department targets a 5.4% and 3.6% growth this year for production of chicken and chicken eggs, respectively, which account for 95% of the poultry subsector.
However, Gregorio A. San Diego, Jr., president of the United Broiler Raisers Association, said the government's 5.4% output growth target is too high given low consumption.
"There is a flat consumption because consumers have less moneywe see that there will be no growth in consumption," he said in a phone interview.
He warned that any oversupply could result in lower prices for poultry products, to the detriment of poultry farmers.
The industry itself projects less than 3% poultry output growth, which would prevent poultry prices from dropping while meeting market demand, Mr. San Diego said.
Meanwhile, production of ducks and duck egg will continue to slide because of low demand, high production cost and government restrictions on the transport of ducks.
"[Duck and duck egg production] would continue to be slow in recovering, but that is taken care of by the [output of chicken] broilers and layers," Dr. Catbagan said.
Since 2005, the industry has been reeling from the ban on transport of ducks in the months of November until March, when migratory birds flock to the provinces.
Dr. Catbagan said ducks and duck eggs production would likely decline by 5% from last year's 81,680-metric ton output worth P2.33 billion.
"We prevented avian influenza because of this restriction, but we limited [the production of ducks] as well," Dr. Catbagan said.
