The Department of Agriculture (DA) has doused cold water on fears of an impending shortage of meat for the holiday season.

To offset what would be another price spike owing to the rush for meat products for Christmas and New Year and the devastation caused by tropical storm Ondoy and typhoon Pepeng, Assistant

Secretary Salvador Salacup said DA has allowed more importations of pork from countries not contaminated by swine flu.

Salacup's official statement comes in the heels of the low demand for meat, particularly pork and chicken, even after the DA had authorized the importation of 5,000 metric tons (MT) of chicken.

This slack in demand has caused the prices of pork cuts to hover only from P160 per kilo to P170 per kilo, an unlikely scenario given the traditional surge in demand before the holidays.

The battering of Southern Luzon by typhoon Santi also caused industry players to plead for an additional allocation of 3,800 MT of chicken.

Earlier, Salacup said government authorized the importation of 5,000 MT of chicken at prices that would not hurt local suppliers.

All told, there would be at least 8,800 MT of chicken next month, which would be some consolation to Monterey and Tyson Foods, the main players in the market.

Tyson Foods purportedly lost 2.5 million broilers in Bulacan due to the double whammy of Ondoy and Pepeng, which inundated practically half of the entire province, according to Vice Governor Willy Sy-Alvarado.

For pork, Salacup said there should be no reason for the market to contemplate Media Noche and Noche Buena without ham, hotdogs, bacon and other products since boatloads of frozen pork are coming to town.

Anywhere from 15,000 MT to 20,000 MT of pork products are due, claimed Salacup, since the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) had released orders allowing the shipments.

Traders earlier complained that the authorized shipments had been cornered by big meat processors and it is also possible that they may or may not bring in the goods owing to the slack in demand.