By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas @jearcalas
Farm output in the first half would grow slower at 4 percent, from 5.71 percent last year, due to the damage wrought by two typhoons in eight regions, according to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol.
Piñol said the losses incurred by farmers from Typhoons Urduja (international name Kai-Tak) and Vinta (international name Tembin), which amounted to at least P1.5 billion, would drag down the performance of the agriculture sector in the first two quarters.
“The first quarter and second quarter would be affected but [growth rate] would not be negative. But there will be declines,” he told reporters in an interview on January 9. “Farm sector might grow by 4 percent in the first half as farmers cannot recover right away.”
Piñol said, however, that Urduja and Vinta did not affect agriculture performance in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Earlier, the chief agriculture said farm output for 2017 would still expand by 5 percent to 6 percent, despite the production losses caused by typhoons.
Favorable crops production allowed the farm sector to grow by 5.28 percent in the first quarter and by 6.18 percent in the second quarter of 2017, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
In January to March the PSA said the production of the crops subsector rose by 8.28 percent. In the April-to-June period, PSA data showed the crops and poultry subsectors recorded output increases of 11.72 percent and 8.36 percent, respectively.
Farm-gate prices in the first quarter of 2017 increased by 3.34 percent, according to PSA data. Price gains were higher in the livestock and fisheries subsectors at 5.96 percent and 7.17 percent, respectively.
In the second quarter of 2017, the PSA said farm-gate prices went up by 4.93 percent. Price increments were recorded in all subsectors; crops at 1.59 percent, livestock at 14.06 percent, poultry at 1.58 percent and fisheries at 7.55 percent.
“From January to June 2017, prices received by farmers increased by an average of 4.17 percent,” the PSA said.
The latest damage report from the Department of Agriculture showed that production losses incurred by some 52,297 farmers in Regions 4A, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 have reached P1.538 billion.