Agri Dep't sees 2012 rice output growing 11%

Seen contributing to the farm sector’s forecast growth of 4 to 5 percent is  paddy rice production increasing by 10.67 percent to 18.46 million metric tons (MMT) this year, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Tuesday.   “We have already factored in the effects of possible typhoon damages for this particular projection. We are confident that we will be able to harvest as much as 18.4 million MT and we are well on our way to attaining self-sufficiency after 2013,” Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told reporters in a briefing.   Rice losses from typhoons last year was estimated at 1.162 MMT, largely in the fourth quarter when palay output slipped by 8.72 percent to 5.93 MMT from 6.5 million MT in 2010.   Corn production also declined by 9.79 percent to 1.4 million MT in the fourth quarter from 1.6 million MT a year earlier.   “If not for the strong typhoons, crop production would have been better, especially rice. Good thing the sector exhibited strong performance during the first three quarters, enough to offset the lost harvest during the typhoon months,” Alcala said.   In 2011, crop production pitched in 29.62 percent of the total agriculture sector output and was valued at P381 billion at current prices. Crop output was, however, higher by 4.82-percent from a negative 2.65 percent in 2010.   The livestock and poultry sub-sectors combined for P228 billion in production value in 2011.   Farmgate prices on average rose 8.98 percent in 2011. Crops prices increased by 13.96 percent while the price of fishery products went up by 6.17 percent.   Prices of livestock and poultry hardly moved, inching up by 0.83 percent and 0.47 percent, respectively. — ELR/VS, GMA News