Agriculture seen to post dismal first qtr growth

The agriculture sector may have to settle for a mediocre one percent or even less growth rate during the first quarter of 2000 due to poor performances showed by almost all sectors.

Rolando Dy, director of the University of Asia and the Pacific (UAP) Agribusiness Institute, said almost all sectors -- grains and other crops, poultry and livestock, fisheries -- will most likely exhibit a single-digit growth rate for the January to March 2000 period.

The poultry sector, which contributes 10 percent of the agricultural gross value-added (GVA), may experience a flat five percent contraction during the first quarter due to the closure of many small poultry farms and reduced production by some commercial poultry raisers resulting from increased smuggling and importation of cheap chicken parts, Dy said.

The livestock sector, which accounts for another 12 percent of agricultural GVA, will register a positive but small growth of three percent during the three-month period due to a low consumer demand and increased pork imports, agricultural experts say.

For many years now, the poultry and livestock sectors have more than made up for the dismal performance of the crops sector. In the past, the poultry sector was registering double-digit growth rates for many years until a few years back when the growth was reduced to a single-digit figure.

Dy also said that except for the coconut sector (around three percent contribution to agricultural GVA) which will probably recover starting this year with a 15-percent growth from the devastating effects of El Niño and La Niña of the previous years and save for some other crops, most crop subsectors will register during the first quarter of 2000 from negative to flat or up to slight increases in production.

According to the Department of Agriculture, the corn sector which contributes around six percent of GVA may register a negative 10-percent growth rate during the first quarter. There are no reports yet as to the performance of the palay sector but early indications show that any growth will be minimal if not zero. The rice sector accounts for 17 percent of the GVA.

For sugarcane, the UAP projects a 10-percent reduction in output during the first quarter a two-percent growth for the fishery sector.

"I'm definitely not bullish as to the performance of the agriculture sector during the first quarter. The performance of the rice sector will be so-so, corn will be down, sugar will be down, poultry will probably be flat, coconut a 15 percent growth. If the major contributors to the GVA like rice, corn, sugar and poultry are down, I don't see anything good happening during the first quarter," Dy said.

For the whole of 2000, Dy is optimistic that the sector will recover and post a three- to four-percent growth. This same optimism is shared by Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara but not NEDA Director General Felipe Medalla who projects a one-percent agriculture growth for the whole year.