Gloria Esguerra Melencio, Arab News

MANILA, 16 November 2007 — Despite the decline in the Philippine peso’s buying power, prices of rice, corn, poultry, vegetables, fish and meat products are expected to remain stable until the Christmas season, the Department of Agriculture has said.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap gave the assurance in the heels of increased prices of wheat and flour, leading to a rise in the cost of pandesal, the bread of ordinary Filipinos.

Citing increased agricultural performance from January to September this year, Yap told a press briefing on Wednes day that price of rice from the National Food Authority remains stable at 18 pesos per kilogram, while commercial rice costs between P26 to P50 per kilogram.

He also assured the public that there will be an ample supply of vegetables until the year ends.

Besides supply coming from Central Luzon and the Cordilleras, vegetables will also be coming from alternative vegetable production sites such as Quezon, Laguna and Mindanao.

The current wholesale prices of vegetables have been recorded at P40 per kg for ampalaya, P50 for a bundle of string beans, P30 per kg for cabbage, and P40 per kg for tomatoes.

Yap said supply of corn will grow by 10 percent as “there is no tight supply” this year, he said. “We are 87-88 percent sufficient for corn,” he added.

An expected increase of 43 million kilograms of chicken meat consumption in December is not a reason to increase prices.

Bureau of Agricultural Statistics data pegged chicken mean at P76 to P110 per kilogram in the retail level.

The figure includes the 7-million-kg imported poultry meat that will be stocked in the cold storage for December holiday feasts.

The fisheries sector proved to be the biggest gainer with an almost 8.0 percent increase in production for the third quarter of 2007, the bureau reported. A kilogram of medium-sized bangus costs P77 per kilogram and a kilogram of medium-sized tilapia costs P75, according to the wholesale selling price monitoring report of Barangay Food Terminal Office.

Yap said that the January to September performance may be lower than the 4.81 percent growth rate during the same period in 2006 but this year’s cumulative growth is expected to enable the agricultural sector to expand by 5.0 percent for the whole year of 2007.