The performance of the agricluture sector is so abysmal even President Duterte admits it is his weakest portfolio. contributed photo

January 24th, 12:20am January 23rd, 11:31pm AJ Bajo

The agriculture sector that President Duterte acknowledged is his weakest portfolio grew by only 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter last year owing to higher production of crops, livestock, poultry and fisheries, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday.

This was slower than the 2.20 percent growth recorded by the agency during the same period in 2017.

“At current prices, the gross value of agricultural production amounted to P521.2 billion, higher by 4.05 percent than the previous year’s level,” the statistics agency said. The gross value of agricultural production was at P500.4 billion during the same period in 2017.

Year to date, agricultural production increased by 0.56 percent, slower than the 3.95 percent gross output in the sector from January to December in 2017.

Crops production, which accounted for 50.40 percent of the total agricultural output, inched up by 0.25 percent, still slower than the 2.66 percent production increase in 2017.

PSA recorded a 2.20 percent decline in palay production during fourth quarter 2018, while corn production grew by 10.82 percent.

In contrast, palay production jumped by 4.37 percent in 2017 while corn production declined by 5.73 percent.

A few months back, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has already reportedly expected that the growth in the agriculture sector will not meet their 4 percent growth projection for the year.

This is in large part due to typhoon Ompong, which hit the country in September last year and resulted in agricultural damages amounting to about P27 billion, the highest since the P35 billion damage brought by typhoon Yolanda in 2013.

The chunk of the the total damage during Ompong was recorded in rice crops at P14.5 billion, data from the DA stated.

“Increases in production were registered by coconut, banana, pineapple, coffee, mango, tobacco, abaca, mongo, tomato, onion, cabbage and rubber. At current prices, the value of crop production amounted to P295.4 billion, 2.19 percent higher than the previous year’s record,” PSA said.

Annually, crops production dropped by 0.98 percent in 2018.

Livestock production, accounting for 17.74 percent of overall agricultural production, increased by 1.64 percent during the quarter on the back of output gains in carabao, hog and dairy. Year to date, it went up by 1.89 percent, higher than the 1.12 percent sub-sector growth in 2017.

Poultry production also grew by 6.99 percent. PSA put the value of poultry production at P60.7 billion at current prices, slightly higher than 2017’s P59.3 billion.

Fisheries production recorded the least growth, at 1.93 percent, still higher than the 1.18 percent output reduction in the fourth quarter of 2017. All major fish species increased in output except for round scad and yellowfin tuna, PSA said.

Annually, the fisheries sub-sector didn’t recover from the 1.73 percent drop in production in 2017, and further on declined by 1.13 percent in 2018.

“On the average, prices received by farmers increased by 2.22 percent. Price increments were noted for crops at 1.94 percent, livestock at 5.69 percent and fisheries at 7.80 percent while poultry recorded an average drop of 4.91 percent,” stated PSA.

This is a far cry from the 6.91 percent increase in the prices received by farmers in 2017.

From January to December 2018, farmgate prices went up by an average of 5.62 percent, higher than the 4.97 percent annual average recorded in 2017.