CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — Northern Mindanao’s rice and corn production experienced growth last year, thanks to the government’s effort to promote the use of high-yield seeds among local farmers.
Rice and corn production grew at 3.57 percent and 4.01 percent, respectively, in 2017, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
In its Commodity Production Performance Assessment for 2017 released recently, the regional office of the Department of Agriculture (DA-10) attributed the production growth to the increase in harvested area and yield through the use of high-yield variety seeds.
Sufficient water supply and favorable weather condition last year also contributed to the growth, the agency added.
Carlene C. Collado, DA-10 director, said the department’s promotion of the use of hybrid rice seeds would help the government attain its sufficiency goal by 2020.
But Collado said the promotion of hybrid rice seeds was juts one of the agency’s strategies to increase rice output. She said DA was also helping farmers by opening up access to loan facilitiess, trainings on effective marketing, and the provision of postharvest facilities.
In the livestock subsector, DA-10 said hog had the highest growth rate at 6.07 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year, followed by carabao at 1.64 percent. For poultry subsector, chicken egg has the highest growth rate at 6.10 percent, chicken at 4.11 percent and duck egg at 1.74 percent.
Among the major crops, banana posted the highest percent change on the volume of production at 4.30 percent, followed by calamansi and pineapple at 2.90 and 1.92 percents, respectively for the period of January to September 2017.
For major and priority non-food and industrial crops, sugarcane’s percent change on the volume of production surges at 60.12 percent followed by tobacco, rubber, abaca and coffee.
Meanwhile, for priority non-crops, palm fruit has the highest percent change on the volume of production at 9.65 percent, cacao (dried beans with pulp) at 5.99 percent.
The fishery sector has mostly negative growth rate production, except for marine cage under the aquaculture subsector at 14.79 percent increase. (Mark D. Francisco/PNA)
