Farm sector posts slower 1.5% growth in January-September

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine agriculture sector posted a 1.5-percent growth in the first nine months of 2009, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) announced yesterday.

This is way below the 4.16-percent growth posted in the first nine months of 2008.

BAS Director Romeo Recide said there has been “a slowing down in the sector, which was largely due to the adverse impact of weather disturbances that hit the country during this period.”

The devastation wrought by typhoon Ondoy occurred Sept. 26 while the destruction caused by Pepeng and Santi on the agriculture sector will be factored in on production in the fourth quarter.

Recide said the July to September 2009 growth figure of 1.55 percent was just about half of the growth rate posted by the sector last year.

Recide said “crops, livestock and poultry registered output increases, albeit slower than last year’s records. However, the fisheries sub-sector came down with production cuts.”

The main reason cited was reduced fishing efforts, because of weather disturbances. In the case of commercial fisheries, other than reduced fishing efforts, limited fishing was noted in South Cotabato because of the ban on the use of fish aggregating device which was imposed by Western and Pacific Conference on Fisheries during the spawning period of tuna in August and September.

From January to September 2009, the gross value of agricultural output amounted to P849.3 billion at current prices or 1.62 percent higher than last year’s record.

Gross output of the crops sub-sector, which registered a 0.15 percent drop in output this year, was worth P450 billion at current prices, which was 1.77 percent lower than last year’s level.

Livestock grossed P138.4 billion, representing a 4.89 percent jump from last year, while poultry amounted to P100.3 billion, up by 11.38 percent.

The fisheries sub-sector was valued at P160.6 billion at current prices, or 3.18 percent higher than the previous year’s record.

The crops sub-sector, which accounts for almost 47 percent of total agricultural production, posted a 0.15 percent decline in production from January to September this year even though the palay and corn crop sub-sectors managed to post positive growth rates of 2.9 percent and 0.76 percent, respectively.

The livestock sub-sector grew 1.95 percent, while the poultry sub-sector did a little bit better with a growth of 3.46 percent, as did the fisheries sub-sector with a growth of 3.28 percent.

According to BAS statistic palay production for the first nine months of this year grew 2.9 percent to 10.9 million metric tons while that of corn rose 0.76 percent to 5.59 million MT.