ILOILO City – Hog raising is still encouraged in Western Visayas despite the ongoing African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreak.
There are still “free zones” in the region available for hog raising, said Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) Region 6 regional veterinary quarantine officer John Roel Hilario.
He added there are also commercial farms that have no issues because they have established biosecurity measures.
“In those areas perhaps we still encourage nga magsagod sang baboy sa gihapon,” said Hilario, citing a huge demand for pork. “This is the right time for us to keep on raising hogs to provide for the demand, even just at the local level.”
As of January this year, the region ranked third among top 5 hog producing regions in the country with 1,126,462 hog heads, contributing 11.55 percent share to the country’s total hog inventory.
The provinces of Negros Occidental and Iloilo were also in the top 10 in terms of hog inventory at fourth and seventh places, respectively.
Of the region’s P20-billion swine industry, 89.90 percent or 1,012,658 hog heads are backyard hog raising while 10.10 percent or 113, 804 are commercial farming.
Meantime, the pork sufficiency in the region for 2022 was at 287 percent and at 304.69 percent for the last quarter of last year, with the consumption demand of 17,850.82 metric tons and a surplus of 36,538.73 metric tons.
As of March 27, three provinces in the region have cases of ASF – Iloilo including Iloilo City, Capiz and Guimaras.
A total of 138 barangays from 34 towns of the three provinces logged cases of the hog disease.
Among the three, Iloilo is the most affected and suffered a decline in its hog inventory.
Iloilo’s swine inventory showed that from 277,421 heads in September 2022, it declined to 180,616 (35 percent) in January this year and 125,507 (45 percent) in February./PN
