Manila, Oct. 24 -- The Department of Agriculture (DA) has started an investigation on the possible deliberate effort by traders to withhold the release of pork products in the market, causing high prices.
Based on data, there is a significant inventory of both locally-slaughtered and imported pork in cold storage facilities accredited by the DA's National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS).
As of the third week of October 2020, the inventory of frozen pork, both local and imported, in DA-NMIS-accredited cold storages nationwide was bigger by 55 percent than the same period in 2019, at 38,216 metric tons (MT).
The inventory of frozen local and imported dressed chicken and chicken parts was 260 percent more, at 83,266 MT versus 22,953MT in 201...