Govt to miss farm growth goals on storm damage

Growth targets for agriculture will not be met this year given the devastation caused by two storms, a Cabinet official said on Monday. With damage estimates already nearing P7 billion, output gains for 2009 could be limited to 2.0-2.5 percent, below the targeted 3.5 percent, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said. Economists had an even lower forecast range of 1.5 percent-2.0 percent. "[The recent storms] will definitely affect our national target this year ... It will definitely be lesser than the 3.5 percent [full-year goal]," Mr. Yap told reporters at the sidelines of a budget hearing at the House of Representatives. The agriculture sector, which employs a third of the national work force and accounts for a fifth of total domestic production, grew by 4.68 percent last year. Mr. Yap said full-year palay output, which accounts for 14 percent of total farm production, might grow by just 1-2 percent, down from the projected 3.77 percent growth to 17.45 million metric tons (MT). "We will meet within the week to make the final assessment of the damage," Agriculture Undersecretary Bernie G. Fondevilla told BusinessWorld at the sidelines of the same budget hearing. Farm sector damage caused by typhoon Pepeng (international codename Parma) and tropical storm Ondoy (international code name Ketsana) has so far reached P6.8 billion. Rice farms have taken the brunt, with Ondoy and Pepeng said to have damaged 293,849 metric tons (MT) and 22,669 MT of palay, respectively, valued at P5.076 billion and P403 million. This is equivalent to almost 2 percent of the national output target. Pepeng has been downgraded to a tropical storm but continues to linger over the Philippines. Officials forecast the system to leave the country by Wednesday. Rolando T. Dy, executive director of the University of Asia and the Pacific’s Center for Food and Agribusiness, concurred with the Agriculture department’s estimates. Final full-year growth, he said, will be "more like 1.75-2 percent as typhoon season is still on." Arsenio M. Balisacan, agricultural economist at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, said: "We will be lucky to get 2-2.5 percent. I would say 1.5-2 percent would be realistic." Mr. Fondevilla said the government might avail of a government deal with Vietnam to import rice to secure stocks for the first half of next year. The Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, signed a pact in March last year for Vietnam to supply up to 1.5 million MT of white rice annually for three years. "That is not only convenient, it is also economical for us. We get a better price instead of allowing the market to jack up [prices]," Mr. Fondevilla told BusinessWorld. The Philippines, which imports a tenth of its rice needs, has so far imported 1.775 million MT of rice — 1.575 million MT by the government and 200,000 MT by the private sector — this year. It bought a record 2.3 million MT last year. - Neil Jerome C. Morales, BusinessWorld