RP may trim 2003 agriculture growth target

Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. said yesterday the government would likely cut its target of four percent year-on-year growth in the farm sector this year.

Lorenzo, while noting a marked improvement in the production of key crops like rice, corn and sugar, admitted the difficulty of achieving the government’s four percent growth target for this year.

"We obviously have to make an adjustment," Lorenzo said.

If we are to achieve four percent this year, we need to grow by four percent in the third quarter and an overall growth of 5.6 percent for the entire second semester. This means that to get both the four percent growth in the third quarter and 5.6 percent in the second half, the fourth quarter performance alone will have to be at 7.2 percent, which is not possible," Lorenzo explained.

The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) said it is looking at a 3.5 percent to four percent full-year growth for the agriculture sector.

Agriculture output accounts for a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), but the sector has been hit by drought from the El Nino weather phenomenon since late 2002 and typhoons in the middle of this year.

In late July, Lorenzo said typhoon Imbudo–the strongest to hit the Philippines in five years– damaged more than P1 billion worth of crops, mostly corn in the key growing areas on the northern island of Luzon.

Lorenzo still refused to say if the original growth target will finally be revised, saying he will get a better picture by the end of the month as new reports come in from the DA’s regional offices.

"If I hasten to say that we are downscaling our targets, then our people may ease up. But I want to push their limits instead to see if we can still achieve what we set out to do earlier this year," Lorenzo said.

The performance of the agriculture sector in the first and second quarters was lackluster compared to last year’s levels.

The El Nino weather disturbance limited the country’s farm sector growth to just 2.79 percent in the first quarter this year compared to the 5.24 percent expansion posted during the same period in 2002. The second quarter growth was only 1.52 percent, way off the 3.43 percent growth during the same period last year.

For the first semester, the country’s farm sector growth slowed down to just 2.4 percent in the first semester compared to the 3.22 percent growth during the same period in 2002.

Production of palay, the country’s major staple was down by 5.13 percent to 5.381 million metric tons (MT) compared to 5.6 million MT in the first half of 2002.

This was due to the drought that reduced harvest areas in the major rice-growing regions of Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Western Visayas, Bicol and Region 12 composed of North Cotabato, Sarangani, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato City.