PH palay, corn output down in 2018
Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2019 16:15:52 +0000
THE country’s palay (unmilled rice) and corn production fell in 2018 as farms, particularly those in Northern Luzon, were battered by a series of typhoons.
“We have data on the extent of the damage of the typhoons on the rice sector and the total is about 1.7 million metric tons (MT). So that was really the main reason why there was a reduction in production,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol told reporters at the sidelines of the 1st National Galunggong Summit.
Piñol’s statement followed the Philippine Statistics Authority’s release of its latest rice and corn situationer, which showed full-year production losses for both crops.
The country’s total palay output hit 19.07 million metric tons (MT) last year, down 1.1 percent from the 19.28 million MT recorded in 2017, the PSA said. Harvested areas and yields also fell, by 0.24 percent and 0.86 percent respectively, from a year earlier.
Corn production, meanwhile, totaled 7.77 million MT, 1.8 percent lower than 2017’s 7.92 million. Harvested areas and yields were down 1.61 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively.
During the last quarter of 2018 alone, palay production fell 2.2 percent to 7.16 million MT from a year earlier while corn posted a 10.9-percent expansion to 1.81 million MT.
Palay and corn account for about half of total crop output, which dropped by 0.98 percent in 2018.
Looking ahead, the PSA said that palay production could recover a bit in the first quarter of 2019, forecasting a 0.49-percent increase to 4.645 million MT from a year earlier.
The yield per hectare is expected to increase by 3.73 percent even as harvest area drops by 3.13 percent.
For corn, the January-March outlook is for a 2.99-percent gain to 2.55 million MT with yields up 4.88 percent and harvest area down 1.8 percent.
“There could be a marked increase in the production in the first quarter because our rice farmers hit by [typhoons] who were supposed to harvest but replanted carried over their harvest to the first quarter of 2019,” Piñol said.
“In fact, the expected El Niño, we’re not even worried about that because we’re expecting it to hit us at the time our farmers will be harvesting. So it’s just right. We won’t have problems in drying our palay in the open.”
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