Philippines sees 10.8 pct rise on corn harvest this year

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The government is expecting a double-digit growth in corn harvest this year despite the damage wrought by recent typhoons on the crops, a senior government official said here today.

Philippines' Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said that the 2013 corn harvest would be 8.2 million metric tons (MT), 10.8 percent more than last year's output of 7.4 million MT, and 28 percent higher than the figure of 2010.

"Likewise, the country's corn sufficiency level has improved, from 83 percent in 2010 to 98 percent in 2012, and we expect to hit 105 percent sufficiency by year-end," he said.

With the estimated record harvest, the country is expecting a corn surplus of 150,000 MT to 200,000 MT, of which the private sector is planning to export 100,000 MT, said Assistant Secretary Edilberto de Luna, who serves as the Philippines' Department of Agriculture (DA) national corn program coordinator.

For the year of 2014, the DA national corn program, with a proposed budget of P1.797 billion (about $41.65 million), targets to produce at least 8.4 million MT's corn, De Luna said.

Corn is the Philippines' second most important crop next to rice and serves as main staple of 14 million Filipinos.