Chicken production in Eastern Visayas surge by 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2019

By PSA-8
April 21, 2020

TACLOBAN CITY – The volume of chicken production in Eastern Visayas increased by 6.9 percent during the fourth quarter of 2019. It went up to 16,673 metric tons (MT) in the fourth quarter of 2019 from 15,602 MT in the same quarter of 2018.

Eastern Visayas production accounted for 3.2 percent of the country’s total chicken production during the fourth quarter of 2019. It ranked eighth among regions with the highest chicken production in the country.

The chicken population in Eastern Visayas dropped by 15.8 percent, from 2,524,559 birds as of 1 January 2019 to 2,124,681 birds as of 1 January 2020.

All provinces contributed to the decline in chicken population, except for Northern Samar and Southern Leyte which posted increases at 16.8 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively.

Among provinces, Leyte recorded the highest chicken population at 831,095 birds as of 1 January 2020. It comprised more than one third (39.1 percent) of the total chicken population in the region. Southern Leyte ranked second with 438,709 birds, accounting for 20.6 percent of the region’s total chicken inventory. Eastern Samar, meanwhile, registered the lowest inventory of chicken with a 4.1 percent share or 87,268 birds.

Among the type of chicken, only layer chickens posted an increase at 7.9 percent, from 452,613 birds as of 1 January 2019 to 488,322 birds as of 1 January 2020. Northern Samar recorded the highest increase at 67.1 percent, followed by Southern Leyte at 8.0 percent. Leyte posted the lowest increase at 2.0 percent. Meanwhile, Eastern Samar, Samar and Biliran declined by 41.9 percent, 19.2 percent and 12.3 percent, respectively.

Broiler chickens dropped tremendously by almost half (46.8 percent) of its inventory, from 472,666 birds as of 1 January 2019 to 251,348 birds as of 1 January 2020. This was largely attributed to the zero or no inventory of broiler chicken in Samar Province due to downtime period on 1 January 2020. Eastern Samar recorded the highest decrease at 91.7 percent. Likewise, Leyte’s broiler population, which shared 57.0 percent of the region’s total broiler population as of 1 January 2020, also declined by 5.6 percent. Southern Leyte’s broiler chicken population, on the other hand, expanded by 90.5 percent. It increased to 61,540 birds as of 1 January 2020 from 32,298 birds as of 1 January 2019.

The number of native/improved chickens also went down by 13.4 percent, from a total inventory of 1,599,280 birds as of 1 January 2019 to 1,385,011 birds as of 1 January 2020. All provinces contributed to the decline in the inventory of native/improved chicken in the region.

About 65.2 percent of the chicken population were native/improved chickens. Layer chickens accounted for 23.0 percent, while broiler chickens comprised 11.8 percent.