By Benjamin Cuaresma
KIDAPAWAN CITY, North Cotabato — Local meat vendors in Kidapawan City are warning that the surge of cheaper imported pork is rapidly eroding their market, forcing some sellers to drastically cut their slaughtering operations as foreign meat gains ground in restaurants, supermarkets and malls.
Narcisa Carbon, president of the Kidapawan Mega Market Meat Vendors Association, raised the alarm during a City Council session, saying imported pork has become a formidable competitor to locally produced meat.
Carbon said as much as 45,000 kilograms of imported pork products have been entering the city every month in recent months, with much of the supply reportedly coming from the Davao region.
The imported products are being delivered directly to restaurants, supermarkets and malls—markets that local vendors say are increasingly favoring cheaper foreign supplies.
“We are affected by this because our sales dwindled since most of the owners of big restaurants and malls prefer imported meat over our local produce,” Carbon told the council.
The price difference has become a major advantage for imported pork.
Carbon said imported pork is selling at about P250 per kilogram, while local meat at the Kidapawan Mega Market is around P300 per kilogram.
For small vendors operating on thin margins, the P50 difference has translated into a substantial loss of customers and sales.
Carbon said vendors who once slaughtered three hogs every other day are now barely managing to put meat on their stalls.
Some vendors, she said, now have to share a single hog.
“We share one hog just to have a supply in the mega market,” Carbon said.
The situation has placed local meat sellers and hog producers in an increasingly difficult position, with vendors struggling to maintain enough sales to justify their previous level of operations.
Carbon blamed Executive Order No. 116, signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in May, for worsening the pressure on local meat sellers.
The order increased the country’s 2026 pork importation volume from 54,210 metric tons to 204,184 metric tons as the government sought to augment pork supplies amid shortages caused by the African swine fever outbreak.
While the measure was intended to address supply concerns, local vendors say the expanded import volume is now intensifying competition against domestic producers.
Carbon urged the City Council to pass an ordinance preventing imported meat from entering Kidapawan.
Councilor Bernardo Piñol has authored a resolution calling on the Department of Agriculture (DA) to exempt Kidapawan City from the entry of imported meat.
If approved, the resolution will be forwarded to the DA regional office for possible intervention.
For Kidapawan’s meat vendors, the battle is becoming increasingly difficult: local pork costs more, imported meat is cheaper, and consumers and large establishments are choosing based on price.
What began as a national effort to fill a pork supply gap is now being felt sharply in the local marketplace—with Kidapawan vendors warning that unless something changes, their businesses and the local hog industry could be pushed further to the margins.
ia/xf
