Challenging year ahead DA: El Niño to keep agriculture production low

CEBU, Philippines – While recovery has become evident in the agriculture sector in Central Visayas, total production is still low, mirroring the sector's sluggish growth due to the threat of climate change and low farmers' income, among other factors.

The Department of Agriculture says 2016 will be a challenging year for agriculture because of the prolonged El Niño phenomenon and the threat of other natural calamities.

"2016 is very challenging because El Niño is forecast by PAGASA to last until June or July," DA Regional Technical Director Joel Elumba told The FREEMAN in an interview.

While forecasts may change from time to time, Elumba said it is better to be prepared for the worst that the phenomenon may bring to the sector as it is forecast to be the worst since the 1997-1998 event.

He said a P66.99 million mitigation budget for El Niño is now being allocated for Region 7. The agency had initially proposed P48.7 million.

Among the mitigating measures included in the mitigation budget include production support; crop pest management; water management (rehabilitation of irrigation projects and water pumps); and cloud seeding operations.

Production decline

Elumba estimated agriculture production to have generally decreased by 3-3.5% this year due to El Niño which delayed the planting of farmers, resulting to less production areas utilized.

"We can see there is an increment decrease in the performance but not that significant," the official pointed out.

National Economic and Development Authority Regional Director Efren Carreon said the crops subsector remained weak while the livestock and poultry subsectors recorded positive performances as of the third quarter this year.

But because the crops subsector, which posted negative growth, accounts for a lion's share of agriculture production, total output in the first three quarters still contracted by 1.9%.

The poultry subsector had the highest growth at 12.6% while crops contracted by 7.6%.

According to NEDA in its economic report for Central Visayas, the outstanding recovery of the chicken egg industry contributed significantly to the double-digit growth rate of the poultry subsector. In Region 7, it's Bantayan Island in Cebu that accounts for 80% of the egg production.

For the crops sector, corn, fruits and vegetables recorded increases in production but palay and industrial and commercial crops registered declines in production in the first three quarters, NEDA said.

"Compared to other subsectors, the crops subsector is most vulnerable to extreme weather conditions," the economic planning agency added.

In his yearend statement, Economic Planning Secretary and NEDA Chief Arsenio Balisacan said that with the frequent occurrence of natural disasters and reality of climate change, the country has to have a strong disaster risk management program that will mitigate the impact of weather disturbances on employment in agriculture, which employs one-third of the workforce.

Challenges of  farmers

Climate change is deemed to be the greatest challenge faced by the agriculture sector.

But aside from that, problems such as poor connectivity from farms to markets, lack of financial aid to small-scale farmers and the lack of know-how also affect the sector's performance, DA's Elumba pointed out.

He said many production areas in the region are still not connected to the market where farmers can sell their produce.

"We are not that advanced yet [in connectivity]," the official noted, citing the World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) that aims to build the needed farm-to-market roads to improved connectivity. The six-year PRDP covers all the country's 80 provinces in 16 regions.

In terms of financial assistance or socialized loans to marginal farmers, Elumba admitted the government cannot just readily provide as it needs to ensure the farmers' capability to pay.

This is an area, he added, where the role of farmers' cooperatives takes into place to provide capital to farmers.

The DA spends on farm inputs such as seedlings, fertilizers and other materials and not necessarily on cash assistance, he said.

The official noted the budget of DA has been increasing every year.

DA-7, for instance, had been allocated a P1.2-billion budget this year, a 3% increase from the 2014 fund. Next year the budget is likewise expected to rise, he said.

With that increase, the department should be expected to help boost agricultural productivity by spending on infrastructure developments and other projects.

By next year, DA-7 will help local government units to craft and implement their respective localized agri-fishery development plans. Elumba said the agency had piloted this in Siquijor province.

Nationwide

In a statement last month, the DA reported that agriculture grew by 0.65% from January to September 2015 nationally.

Gross value of agriculture production amounted to P336 billion at current prices, down 3.23% from last year's value.

Agriculture still managed to grow 0.04% in the third quarter despite the harsh weather.

While production improvements were observed in banana, pineapple, mango, abaca, cassava, camote, eggplant and calamansi, DA noted that corn and palay production were heavily affected by the hot weather and typhoons.

Nationwide, the crops subsector accounted for 45% of the total production, followed by fishery (20%), livestock (18%) and poultry (17%). (FREEMAN)