Agriculture sector still sluggish – PSA

“The agriculture sector made the smallest contribution to the country’s economic growth compared to other industries, according to the Philip- pine Statistics Authority (PSA).

PSA said agriculture, forestry and fishing’s (AFF) contribution to the country’s gross domestic product in 2021 was equivalent to a share of 9.6% against 10.2% a year ago.

This compares poorly to the 60.5% share and 29.9% share of ser- vices and industry sectors, respectively, for the comparative period.

The essential sector’s performance is measured using the year-on- year growth of its gross value added (GVA) or the difference between the” consumption. value of output and intermediate

The PSA took into account figures from 2017 to 2021, with 2018 as baseline year for the re­port.

GVA of the agriculture sec­tor in 2021 stood at P1.78 billion, down by 0.3% amid the gains made by certain subsectors.

The livestock industry in­curred the biggest decline of 17.3% to P179.02 billion while poultry and egg production fell by 0.3% to P175 billion.

Agricultural crop output climbed by 2.6% to P934.9 billion, with cacao and sugarcane leading the gains.

Palay, corn, coconut including copra, banana, mango, pineapple, coffee, rubber and tobacco also posted positive growth rates.

Cassava, abaca and other ag­ricultural crops decreased, still re­covering from the slump of 2020.

Meanwhile, other animal pro­duction rose by 0.9% to P69.3 billion while fishing and aquacul­ture registered a 0.2% increase to P223.5 billion.

Agricultural crops took the li­on’s share in the GVA with 52.7%, followed by fishing and aquacul­ture with 12.6% and support ac­tivities to the AFF with 10.8%.

Livestock (10.1%), poultry and egg production (9.9%), other animal production (3.9%) and for­estry and lodging (0.2%) account­ed for the remainder.

ll regions in Luzon except the National Capital Region, Cagayan Valley and Mimaropa recorded de­clines. The three regions returned to positive territory last year.