Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
The government is still optimistic that the agriculture and fisheries sector will hit its growth target of 1 to 2 percent in 2024 despite the El Niño phenomenon wreaking havoc on crops and fishing areas earlier this year.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said, however, that achieving the target growth expansion would be “not too easy” since the sector suffered from the drought caused by El Niño, which ended last month.
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“We started with El Niño ng January tapos katatapos lang ng June then we’re coming with La Niña,” he said during a conference on Tuesday, a day after the State of the Nation Address of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Crop damage
El Niño is a weather phenomenon characterized by below normal rainfall conditions. La Niña, meanwhile, is the opposite.
Aside from widespread power outages hitting thousands of households across the country, the Department of Agriculture (DA) previously reported that agricultural damage due to El Niño reached P6.3 billion as of May.
READ: Agri damage due to El Niño hits P1.6 billion
The rice sector, it said, suffered the most with P3.3 billion worth of damage.
Mimaropa had the highest reported damage at P1.7 billion, followed by Western Visayas with P1.5 billion, and the Cordillera Administrative Region with almost P800 million.
More land
However, Laurel was confident that local farmers could still increase their production with more irrigated land, including 45,000 hectares of new land.
“Of course, El Niño mas mababa ang production nang konti. Sa La Niña as long as walang malaking bagyo, I think mas mataas ang production (Of course, lower production was recorded during El Niño. In La Niña, as long as there are no strong typhoons, I think we will have higher production volume), he added.
Last year, the agriculture sector grew at 1.2 percent, buoyed by higher poultry and livestock production, as well as the increase in fruit and rice harvest.
Rice harvest in 2023 reached 20.06 million metric tons, according to a previous statement from DA. INQ