Monday, February 05, 2007
Palay production to fall this year
By Joy Romares-Sevilla
VOLUME of palay production in Davao City is expected to decrease by 23.7 percent during the first semester of this year as compared to the same period last year, according to the crop forecast of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS).
BAS report showed that Davao City will produce a total of 10,465 metric tons of palay from January to June this year, lower than 13,712 metric tons produced during the same period last year.
Irrigated rice fields will also decrease its production to only 4,354 metric tons of palay, 32.1 percent lower as compared to 6,412 metric tons produced last year.
Meanwhile, rain-fed rice fields are also foreseen to have a downward trend by 16.3 percent from 7,300 metric tons in 2006 to 6,111 metric tons this year.
BAS said the forecasts was based on farmers' standing crops as of January 1, 2007 and based on their planting intentions from January to March, this year.
Likewise, a downward trend was also reported for palay yield per hectare.
For irrigated rice fields in the city, a decrease of 3.6 percent was seen, while a decrease of 1.2 percent for the rain-fed rice fields was noted.
This would mean that the area harvested per hectare will also decrease from both irrigated and rain-fed rice fields.
Last year, growth of palay output in Davao Region slightly went up with the production volume reaching 476,400 metric tons, 1.3 percent higher than the 2005 figure of 470,200 metric tons.
The main reasons cited for the increase of palay output were the effect of the favorable weather conditions during the dry season cropping from January to June 2006 that increased the harvest area by three percent, mostly coming from the rain-fed areas, and the program interventions of the Department of Agriculture, which is the "Ginintuang Masagana Ani (GMA)" that brought up the yield by 2.7 percent.
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Manila. For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (February 5, 2007 issue)
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