Angara cites agri sector growth in first half

Sen. Edgardo Angara, head of the Senate committee on agriculture, cited yesterday the remarkable growth rate of Philippine agriculture, which expanded 3.5 percent in the first half of 2007.

Angara, a former agriculture secretary and lead author of the Agricultural Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), noted that an average growth rate of over three percent is a “dramatic” improvement, exceeding the country’s population growth rate which is a little over two percent.

“Three percent of value added growth in agriculture is already dramatic,” Angara acknowledged at the presentation of the proposed 2008 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) before the Senate finance subcommittee.

Angara, who had chairs the Congressional Committee on Agriculture and Fishery, Modernization (COCAFM), said the DA should continue shepherding the agriculture sector to an average growth rate of over three percent consecutively for the next five years “so that we can ensure food security.”

During the watch of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Philippine agriculture posted a sustained growth in the first two quarters of 2007, expanding 3.5 percent from January to June with the fisheries subsector as the year’s chief growth driver.

In terms of value, farm production rose 5.19 percent from P443.6 billion in the first half of 2006 to P466.7 billion for the same period this year.