Most major vegetables grow Q3 production

MANILA, Philippines — The production of the country’s major vegetables and root crops – except for potato – expanded in the third quarter despite a decrease in area planted, according to the latest report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Among the country’s top vegetable and root crops were ampalaya, mongo, cabbage, eggplant, onion, tomato, potato, sweet potato and cassava.

In its latest quarterly bulletin, PSA said tomato registered the highest growth at 6.1 percent to 29,652.30 metric tons (MT).

Northern Mindanao was the top tomato producer with 22,582.57 MT, accounting for 76.2 percent of the total production during the quarter.

Ampalaya production rose 2.7 percent to 20,134.70 MT, with Calabarzon producing the highest volume at 7,371.21 MT or 36.6 percent.

Eggplant output was up by 2.3 percent to 38,630.62 MT due to the expansion of hectarage and the seeds distributed by the Department of Agriculture’s regional field office.

Production of sweet potato increased by 2.2 percent to 138,678.02 MT. Eastern Visayas was the leading producer of sweet potato with 48.57 MT or 35 percent of the total.

Onion recorded a 1.7 percent rise in output to 23.3 MT, with native onion cornering 56.9 percent of the total production.

Cagayan Valley was the major producer of onion during the quarter with 11.8 MT or 50.6 percent of the total.

Cabbage production increased by 1.2 percent to 12,481.34 MT as bigger heads were harvested due to sufficient rainfall during head formation, as well as non-occurrence of destructive typhoons in most areas.

Mongo production improved by 0.7 percent to 1,371.54 MT with Cagayan Valley as the major producer, accounting for 41.5 percent with its 569.76 MT output.

Cassava production inched up by 0.3 percent to 591,059.21 MT.

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) posted the largest production with 282,637.25 MT, contributing 47.8 percent to the total.

On the other hand, potato production contracted by one percent to 14,288.62 MT.

The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) was the top potato producer cornering 62.2 percent of the total with 8,885.45 MT.

Among the major vegetables and root crops, potato, eggplant, ampalaya and onion saw higher area planted at 0.8 percent, 0.4 percent, 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

On the contrary, the area harvested for mongo declined by 0.5 percent, for cabbage by 5.8 percent, tomato by 4.5 percent, and sweet potato and cassava by 0.4 percent.