The Philippine Statistics Authority in Central Visayas  revealed yesterday that crop production in the region dropped by P4.7 billion.

The decrease was attributed to the destruction brought about by super typhoon "Odette" that struck the region in December 2021.

Philippine Statistics Authority-7 chief statistical specialist Leopoldo Alfanta Jr. said the figures for the crops' growth rate plunged Central Visayas to the bottom of the list among the 16 regions in the country.

He cited the region's production value dropped 16.9 percent, from P27.967 billion in 2021 to P23.246 billion in 2022.

Highest decrease

As he pointed out, Central Visayas posted the highest decrease in production value of crops in the whole country.

Western Visayas followed which suffered 3.5 percent drop. The Bicol Region had the highest increase at 2.6 percent.

Sugarcane had the highest volume of crop production by commodity at 2.26 million metric tons, followed by coconut at 0.3 million metric tons and palay at 0.24 million metric tons.

In terms of the value of crop production by commodity, palay topped  at 5.152 billion, next is sugarcane with P4.08 billion and mango at P3.48 billion. Fourth was banana production at P2.4 billion and coconut at P2.32 billion.

Coffee production was only valued at P3 million, cacao at P6 million, and mongo with P21 million.

Cabbage, string beans

Alfanta said that in 2022, only cabbage and string beans posted positive growth in the value of crop production by commodity at 9.4 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively.

In 2022, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector only contributed P84 billion or 6.5 percent of the total gross regional domestic product of Central Visayas.

Among the major economic sectors, the services sector remained the largest contributor to the regional economy at P892.7 billion, accounting for the highest share at 69.4 percent in 2022.

This was followed by the industry sector that contributed 24.1 percent or P310.6 billion to the region's performance   in 2022, with manufacturing and construction being the top contributing subsectors.