El Niño affecting size of locally produced eggs

Besides damaging crops and drying up farmlands, El Niño also makes its presence strongly felt in the country's agriculture by affecting the size of the locally produced eggs.

According to the Philippine Egg Board Association (PEBA), the farmgate benchmarked price of medium-sized eggs currently stands at P4.50 to P5.40, which depends on the area and operations of the producer.

PEBA president Francis Uyehara said that, in general, the entire Philippines is experiencing the extreme heat caused by the weather phenomenon.

He noted: "But remarkably, it is hotter in the north compared to the south. All farm producers are already experiencing problems due to extreme heat."

"The number one effect of extreme heat is that our chickens eat less, which results in a decrease in egg production and also a significant reduction in [egg] sizes," he said.

"The distribution of the sizes of the eggs that we get is unbalanced; there are more small ones than bigger ones."

Uyehara added that there is an increased problem with the chicken's mortality due to heat stroke.

He clarified, however, that the intense heat doesn't affect the quality of the eggs.

"It has no effect on the nutritional value [of the egg], the problem here is the reduction in size." Back then, we were able to get large and [extra large] sizes, now there are more small or extra small ones," he said.

With the surplus of small-sized eggs, the prices of smaller eggs decreased while the prices of bigger eggs remained high, according to Uyahera.

According to the data from the Department of Agriculture's (DA) Bantay Presyo on Wednesday, medium-sized chicken egg prices range from P6 to P8.25.