PSA: Agricultural Productions Dropped Last 2022

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), agricultural production shrank by over 0.1% last 2022, making it the third consecutive year of contractions with lessened fisheries and crop output.

PSA data shows that the full-year value of agriculture and fisheries production declined shower compared to the contraction of 1.7% in 2021. This likewise missed the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) 1.2-1.5% full-year target of growth.

After the 0.3% growth in 2019, the past three years have posted consecutive contractions for farm output.

The PSA identifies the decline in decreased fisheries and crop production that offsets the growth in livestock and poultry production.

In Q4, production of agriculture declined by 1% which showed a reversal of the 0.5% growth in the same period of the previous year.

With the present prices, the production value of fisheries and agriculture equaled to an estimated ₱611.52 billion in Q4, which indicated a 9.4% increase year on year.

The agriculture sector accounts for 10% of the overall gross domestic product (GDP) of the country.

“Agriculture performed better in 2022 than in 2021, although improvement is at a very low rate, because of the opening of the economy by the second half of the year and hence, mobility of people (and) goods and services in agriculture is now less constrained,” mentioned former Agriculture Undersecretary Fermin D. Adriano.

For Federation of Free Farmers National Manager, Raul Q. Montemayor mentioned that “The minimal 1% decline in the crops subsector, including palay, is suspect, given the major increases in fertilizer, fuel and other input prices which should have led farmers to reduce their hectarage or scrimp on inputs. To some extent, the value of production could have been propped up by higher farmgate prices,”

Source: Business World