DA to buy 32K female pigs to hasten hog sector’s recovery from ASF
The Department of Agriculture (DA) is rolling out a P1.6-billion program to rebuild the country’s swine population and accelerate the sector’s recovery from African Swine Fever (ASF).
It is procuring around 32,000 gilts (female pigs) as part of a broader plan to restore the national swine population to the pre-ASF level of around 13 million heads.
Piglets will be redistributed to eligible multiplier farms to ensure traceability and quality control, according to the DA’s Memorandum Circular No. 10 on the repopulation project.
The DA said it is targeting to increase the national hog population by six million hogs by 2028. This year alone, the country needs to produce at least one million more heads of pigs to stabilize supply and reduce dependence on imports, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said.
The total swine inventory slightly increased to 8.79 million heads in 2025 from 8.75 million heads in 2024, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed. Last year’s figure was 30.8-percent lower than the swine inventory level of 12.71 million heads in 2019, when the Philippines recorded the first ASF outbreak.
