Vegetable, root crop harvest higher in Q4

MANILA, Philippines — Most of the country’s major vegetables and root crops saw higher output in the fourth quarter, according to the latest report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Among the country’s top nine vegetable and root crops that posted higher production are potato, eggplant, tomato, onion, sweet potato and cassava.

In its latest quarterly bulletin, the PSA said onion recorded the highest growth during the quarter at 23.3 percent output to 10,578.17 metric tons (MT), with native onion cornering 80.8 percent of the total production.

Ilocos Region was the major producer of onion during the quarter with 9,561.5 MT or 90.4 percent of the total.

Potato production also grew by 5.4 percent to 58,997.35 MT. Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) was the top potato producer cornering 86.4 percent of the total with 50,982.82 MT.

Production of sweet potato increased by 3.4 percent to 141,314.66 MT. Zamboanga Peninsula was the leading producer of sweet potato with 19,936.08 MT or 14.1 percent of the total.

Tomato registered a 0.9 percent increase to 25,372.93 MT. Northern Mindanao was the top tomato producer with 14,543.45 MT, which is about 57.3 percent of the total production during the quarter.

Cassava production inched up by 0.6 percent to 805,107.25 MT. Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) posted the largest production with 488,001.40 MT, contributing 60.6 percent to the total.

Eggplant output was almost flat at 23,503.09 MT. The top producers of eggplant are Central Luzon and Calabarzon with 14.3 percent and 12.9 percent, respectively.

On the other hand, ampalaya production declined by 4.3 percent to 17,704.49 MT, with Calabarzon producing the highest volume at 5,254.59 MT or 29.7 percent.

Mongo production decreased by 1.5 percent to 3,131.58 MT with Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) as the major producer, sharing 56.2 percent with its 1,760.52 MT output.

Cabbage production also slipped by 0.7 percent to 57,259.45 MT, with CAR as the top producer with 80.5 percent of the total output.

Among the nine major vegetables and root crops, potato, eggplant, tomato, onion and cassava saw higher area planted with growths of 1.2 percent, one percent, 0.5 percent, 20.8 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

On the contrary, the area harvested for mongo declined by 0.5 percent, for cabbage by 0.3 percent, ampalaya by 0.2 percent, and sweet potato and cassava by 0.6 percent.