MITA Opposes DA 60-Day Pork Import Ban to Protect Traders

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. issued a 60-day temporary suspension on pork imports this week to protect local producers from crashing prices.

The move, formalized through Department Order No. 33, aims to provide immediate relief to a domestic hog industry facing massive financial losses. According to official Department of Agriculture announcements, the agency determined that increased imports between 2021 and August 2026 caused serious injury to the local sector.

However, the decision has met immediate resistance from the Meat Importers and Traders Association (MITA), which argues the government is misidentifying the cause of the industry’s struggle. The traders group contends that the shortage is a result of disease rather than foreign competition.

“Importation increased due to the shortage and not the other way around. In fact, import volumes still cannot close the deficit. Penalizing trade for a production shortfall caused by disease fails to address the root cause of the local industry’s structural challenge,” MITA President Emeritus Jesus Cham told The Manila Times.

The math behind the meat market

The Department of Agriculture’s decision is rooted in a significant drop in farmgate prices. The agency reported that falling prices cost local producers an estimated P27.9 billion between January and July 2026. BusinessWorld Online reported that the DA estimates domestic hog raisers’ losses could potentially double to P55.8 billion by the end of the year if these price trends persist.

The volatility has been extreme for some producers. While the average farmgate price shifted from P198.30 per kilogram in 2025 to P175.75 in the first half of 2026, some local hog producers saw prices plunge 50 percent, dropping from P240 to just P120 per kilogram, The Manila Times reported.

To understand the scale of the market shift, consider the following data regarding pork availability and production:

Metric	2021 Level	2025 Level	First Half 2026
Domestic production share of demand	74.3%	65.5%	54%
Import share of pork availability	39%	61%	65%

MITA has warned that this ban could squeeze micro, small, and medium enterprises, such as restaurants and carinderias, that rely on imported pork for consistent quality and food safety standards. The group also said that as of October 26, cold storage inventories held 84,307.67 metric tons of imported pork, which represents just over a month’s supply.

Rice procurement and the threat of scarcity

While the pork sector fights an import ban, the rice sector faces different pressures. The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag) welcomed a recent increase in the National Food Authority (NFA) palay buying price to P30 per kilogram, but leaders say the move lacks the necessary financial backing.

Sinag Executive Director Jayson Cainglet pointed out that the NFA’s procurement budget remains stuck at P9 billion. Even with the higher price, the current budget would only allow the agency to buy roughly 360,000 metric tons of palay. This represents less than 10 days of national production and only about 2 percent of the total harvest.

Cainglet warned that relying on imports to fill the gap is a dangerous gamble, especially as major exporting nations face environmental and geopolitical instability.

“Every rice farmer who stops planting, every hog raiser who shuts down operations, every corn farmer who abandons production and every agricultural worker who leaves the countryside represents a loss of productive capacity that cannot simply be replaced by an import order,” Cainglet said.

The risk is compounded by climate concerns in the region. According to Sinag, the Philippines sources about 84 percent of its rice imports from Vietnam, a country currently bracing for El Niño impacts that could affect 350,000 hectares of rice fields. With India and Thailand also expecting production declines, the margin for error in food security is thinning.

The Department of Agriculture has earmarked an additional P10 billion to finance further palay purchases, but it is unclear if this will stabilize farmgate prices. For now, the tension between protecting local producers and maintaining low consumer prices remains the central conflict of the nation’s agricultural policy.