Prices of agri products rose faster in Q3 of 2022
Prices of agricultural goods rose at a faster pace in the third quarter of last year as crops, livestock and poultry registered growth while fisheries slowed down, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
In a report, the PSA said the producer price index (PPI) for agriculture registered an annual growth rate of 15.2 percent from July to September 2022 against a gain of 10 percent in the same period a year prior.
This was also higher than the expansion of 13.1 percent recorded in the second quarter of 2022. This brings the national average growth rate of PPI for agriculture to 11.4 percent as of end-September last year.
The third-quarter PPI for crops further climbed to 16.4 percent from 14.1 percent previously.
Price indices of commercial crops and fruits increased while that of cereals and rootcrops declined.
Likewise, beans and legumes, fruit vegetables and leafy vegetables posted negative annual growth rates as well as the index of condiments.
The PPI for livestock and poultry rose to 17.5 percent from 13 percent. Higher year-on-year hikes in the indices of livestock and poultry were observed.
The PPI for fishery decelerated to 5.3 percent from last quarter’s growth rate of 6.8 percent.
Lower increases were seen in aquaculture, commercial fishery and marine municipal fishery while the index of inland municipal fishery tumbled to 4.7 percent.
Among the regions outside the National Capital Region, Eastern Visayas posted the highest increment of 57.7 percent.
Northern Mindanao, however, was the only region whose PPI dropped to 1.4 percent.
As explained by the statistics agency, the agriculture PPI measures the changes in the average prices received by farmers for the sale of their agricultural products relative to a base year.
The PSA used 2018 as the base year for producing this report.“It is also used as an indicator for monitoring the implementation of agricultural price policy decisions and as a means for predicting price movements,” it said.
