Rice production this year is expected to fall short of the government estimate, largely because of a substantial drop in fertilizer use, a senior agriculture official said.

The government earlier estimated this year’s rice production at 17.33 million metric tons before milling. The output might reach only 16.6 million metric tons, said Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (Golden Abundant Harvest) rice program director Fisco Malabanan.

Last year, rice production reached 16.24 million metric tons before milling.

In a statement, Malabanan said rice yields per hectare were not as high as originally projected by the Department of Agriculture because of a 30-percent drop in application of inorganic fertilizers during the wet season, the main cropping season.

Farmers cut down on their fertilizer use because of fertilizer prices more than doubled, to about P2,000 per bag in the August-October period from year-earlier levels.

Fertilizer prices started to decline in November as prices of crude in the world market softened.

In August, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics slashed the DA’s original rice production estimate of 17.33 million metric tons before milling, to 16.94 million. Last month, it scaled down the forecast to 16.89 million in view of continued increases in fertilizer prices.

Malabanan said the Department of Agriculture partly offset the decline in rice yield per hectare by increasing by 7.9 percent the total area planted to rice during the wet cropping season.

He said more than 6.7 million metric tons of rice had been harvested so far in the second half of the year.

“Such preliminary yields indicate that [rice] production will still post growth this year despite the significant drop in fertilizer use,” Malabanan said.

The bulk of the initial second-semester harvests came from the provinces of Iloilo, Pangasinan, Isabela, Cagayan, Ilocos Norte, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Oriental Mindoro, Leyte, Sultan Kudarat, North Cotabato and Maguindanao.

The main harvest season started in October and will end in December.

For 2009, the government estimates price output at 17.7 million metric tons before milling.

Under a newly revised Rice Self-Sufficiency Plan, the rice sector must post a 5.1-percent growth annually to achieve self-sufficiency by 2013. Under the plan, rice production will reach 21.58 million metric tons, before milling, in 2013. Edited by INQUIRER.net