Agri growth slowed to 0.3% in 9 months

The growth in Philippine agricultural production slowed down to 0.3 percent year-on-year at P565.4 billion (at constant prices) in the nine months to September, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). This was worse compared to the 1.1-percent growth recorded in the same period of 2013. Still, Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala welcomed the report, saying it indicated the sustained growth of the agri-fishery industry while showing the need to continue to find ways to serve as many stakeholders as possible, especially small-scale farmers and fisherfolk. “We need to keep up the interventions and programs on the ground and to intensify them if needed,” Alcala said in a statement. Crops turned around with a   growth of 1.2 percent. In the first nine months of 2013, however, the subsector contracted by 0.8 percent. In terms of current prices, output jumped by 9.6 percent to P1.12 trillion as growth in farmgate prices rocketed to 9.2 percent from a sluggish 0.5 percent in the same period last year. “Despite the considerable damage caused by typhoons ‘Glenda,’ ‘Luis’ and ‘Mario’ during the months of July and September, the crops and livestock subsectors came up with output increments,” the PSA observed. “However, the poultry and fisheries subsectors contracted during the period,” the agency added. The crops subsector, which represented 51 percent of total output value in constant prices, amounted to P288.6 billion. Palay farms alone, which represented 17.5 percent of total output, turned out P98.8 billion—still the biggest amount for any farm product but growth was only 0.4 percent. The PSA noted that while there were good harvest records of palay in the first half of the year, the third-quarter production was adversely affected by typhoons “Glenda” and “Luis”.