Amid DA warning, group says no egg shortage

THE Philippine Egg Board Association (PEBA) assured the public of sufficient egg supply for the year amid concerns about a possible shortage of the cheapest protein source.

This, after Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. recently said the agency forecasts a potential shortage of eggs by April due to an overproduction last year that dragged down farmgate prices to as low as P4 per piece and pushed producers to cull their chickens to offset losses.

âWe donât project a shortage [of eggs]. On the contrary,  we project an oversupply this year,â PEBA President Francis Uyehara told reporters in an interview on Friday.

Uyehara explained that while producers did incur losses during the summer of last year, they started to repopulate after a price hike in eggs was seen from June to September.

âBecause prices rose during those months, our industry friends started to repopulateâ¦So, in November [and] December the prices of eggs started to stabilize,â he said, speaking partly in Filipino.

However, Uyehara noted the eroding demand for eggs following the holiday season, which left a huge supply from last month.

âBecause demand significantly declined for table eggs [after new year], the supply of eggs remained high coming from December.â

Despite this, Uyehara mentioned that the countryâs egg supply could be compromised if there were massive local outbreaks of avian influenza (AI), stressing the need to fast-track the availability of bird flu vaccines.

âFor this year, we donât see a shortage of table eggs unless we experience local massive outbreaks of bird flu, which we donât have now,â he said.

âThatâs why itâs important to us, that for the layer industry, that availability of the AI vaccineâ¦is ensured; thatâs our security.â

The agency recently said that the long-awaited bird flu vaccines are expected to hurdle field trials by the end of March this year.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa said the trial results for AI vaccines would be presented to the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) through the Veterinary Technical Advisory Committee (VTAC), which would then be endorsed to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

âBy the end of this quarter, the two trials would be concluded and then the application for approval will be sent to the FDA,â de Mesa said.

He noted that the vaccines undergoing field trials came from companies in Hungary and Germany.

Laurel said that if the vaccine comes out in March, the agency would allot P300 million which could procure 30 million doses.

Industry groups have been lobbying for bird flu vaccines given their international availability which were proven effective against the transboundary animal disease.

Retail prices of medium white eggs ranged from P7 to P9 per piece, based on the latest government price monitoring report.