Agri output up 0.7% in Q4 of 2023

MANILA, Philippines  —Agriculture output in the fourth quarter of 2023 climbed by 0.7 percent driven mainly by improved crop, poultry and livestock production, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Tuesday.

This brought the overall value of agriculture production to P493.72 billion, up from P490.06 billion in the same period in the previous year, the PSA said.

Poultry production expanded by 7.8 percent to P67.65 billion as all commodities “recorded improvements in the value of production.” This accounted for 13.7 percent of the total agriculture output.

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Livestock, meanwhile, amounted to P72.1 billion, a 2.7-percent growth.

Crop production, which accounted for the majority of the total output at 58.7 percent, rose slightly to P290 billion from P289.6 billion.

The outlier was fisheries, which was the only subsector that posted a decline.

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It dipped by 5.2 percent year-on-year at P63.97 billion as production of at least 13 products contracted.

These include bangus (milkfish) production, which declined by 5.7 percent, and seaweed output, which dropped by 46.1 percent