Chino S. Leyco
Manila Times

DESPITE a prolonged drought, the Philippine farm output, which accounts for a fifth of the country’s economy, grew faster in the third quarter, the Department of Agriculture reported Wednesday.

In a briefing, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said that in the July to September period the farm sector expanded by 5.39 percent, faster than last year’s same-period growth of 4.08 percent, as well as this year’s first and second quarter growth of 3.3 percent and 4.09 percent, respectively.

“If the weather holds, we are comfortable of hitting our initial target of 4.5 to 5 percent growth this year. A lot of the expansion was due to our quick and decisive action on the dry spell,” Yap told reporters.

The Bureau of Agriculture Statistic said that for the first nine months growth however slowed to 4.3 percent from last year’s 4.81 percent.

Rolando T. Dy, executive director of the Center for Food and Agribusiness at the University of Asia and the Pacific, said the figures were surprising.

Dy earlier forecast the sector’s growth to range from 3 percent to 4 percent in the third quarter.

“But I don’t think this will be sustained in the last quarter,” he said, adding the sector would grow by only 2 percent in the final three months of the year.

In the third quarter alone, the fishery sub sector remained the driver, growing 9.75 percent and contributing 26.35 percent of total production.

The crops sub sector expanded by 6.25 percent, and contributed 46.77 percent to the total.

The livestock and poultry sub sectors recovered during the period but still lagged behind other segments. Livestock inched up 1.13 percent while poultry hardly improved.

Yap said that by the end of the year, the agency targets that the country will be 90 percent self-sufficient in rice, and 87 percent to 88 percent self-sufficient in corn.

“Depending on how the weather [turns out], we’ll achieve at least 16 million metric tons of rice output this year,” he said.

Yap assured that there will be ample supply of chicken and vegetables for the upcoming holidays.

“We have 43 million kilos of chicken until the end of the year,” he said.