Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol is positive that the rice and corn sub-sectors will rebound by the first semester of 2019.
“For rice, we expect an increase in harvest from 19.1 million metric tons (MMT) to 20MMT in the first half of next year,” the agri chief announced.
Piñol added that the Department of Agriculture will be setting aside P10-million (M) in funds for mechanization, provision of good quality seeds and credit assistance.
“We will also be adjusting the planting calendar for rice to cope up with the climate change,” the Secretary said.
Historical data shows that typhoon season falls on the months of September and October.
“As such, we will adjust to avoid October harvest,” Piñol said.
The Secretary also announced that the Department will utilize lands for rice production that are not prone to typhoon. Dubbed as the Southern Swing, expansion areas for rice will be established in Lanao del Sur, Zamboanga, Tawi-tawi, some parts of Central Mindanao, Leyte, Bohol, and Palawan.
“Samar, for example, has very fertile soil and sufficient water resources from their river system,” he said.
The Secretary is set to visit the province for the launch of the 100,000 hectare rice demo farm under a private and public partnership.
Philippine agriculture faired well for 2018 at 0.15% increase, with growth from both the livestock and poultry sub-sectors. With the sustained demand for meat processing and the efficient control of diseases, livestock grew by 2.15%, while poultry scored a 5.45% increase.
However, a decrease in production is noted for crops and fisheries, which suffered a lost of 3.64% and 2.64% respectively.
For rice, the biggest contributors for the decrease were the bad weather conditions and delay in planting due to rehabilitation of irrigation facilities and late rainfall. While the downtrend in the fish subsector can be attributed to the limited supply of fingerlings, hesitation to place stocks because of possible demolition of fish pens, white spot disease caused by water pollution and reduced number of fishing days due to strong winds and rough seas.
However, the DA management team is positive that with the financing programs such as the Production Loan Easy Access Program (PLEA), the Survival and Recovery Assistance Program (SURE) and the Machineries and Equipment Loan Program, farmers and fishers will improve production, and performance of Philippine Agriculture will greatly improve.
Under PLEA, a total of P1.143 billion has been released to 36,716 borrowers from 45 provinces, while SURE released a total of P109.29 million to more than 9,400 borrowers from provinces affected by natural calamities.
Also, under the new credit program for farm machineries and equipment, the government has set aside a total of P20M in credit funds. From these, the farmers or fishers may borrow money to be used for the procurement of machineries of their preferred brand, as long as it is included in the DA-approved machinery packages eligible for financing. (oda rodriguez/DA-AFID)
