AGRICULTURE Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. expressed optimism with some caution in the country’s food production outlook this year, highlighting positive trends in the third quarter but expressing concerns for the last quarter.
Admitting that agricultural output contracted in the second quarter due to the El Niño climate effect, Tiu Laurel also mentioned potential problems in the coming three months.
On the bright side, he said that with sufficient water availability and improved weather conditions, the July-September crop planting period is expected to show significant improvement. “The third and fourth quarter output should be good because we have water,” Tiu Laurel said at a press briefing on Monday.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. Photo from Department of Agriculture
But a cause for concern is the coming La Niña weather pattern which could cause storms or heavy rain. “Last Thursday and Friday, I went to five provinces, and I saw a lot of flooding. So, again, we throw away [the crops] that were planted in the flooded areas,” Tiu Laurel said.
This is likewise the reason the Agri chief projected that, in the coming months, full-year farm output may decrease: “There is a possibility, honestly. Because we really had a very bad El Niño [season] and productivity was down, really down.”
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that in the first quarter of 2024, the country’s farm output remained relatively flat as its three subsectors posted declining figures.
Then production fell 3.3 percent in the second quarter, with losses in crops and livestock output outweighing gains in poultry and fisheries.
From the April-June period, agriculture and fisheries earned P413.9 billion, lower than the P429.6 billion in January-March and P433.1 billion a year earlier. The April-June numbers negated the 0.2-percent production increase in the first three months of the year and even worse than the 1.2-percent drop a year earlier.
While farm output from January to March posted an uptick of 0.05 percent, it was smaller than the 2.1-percent growth in the same period last year and the 0.9-percent rise three months earlier.
In 2023, agricultural revenue grew 0.4 percent due to higher poultry, crops and livestock production valued at P1.76 trillion. In 2022, it was worth P1.75 trillion.
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