THE country’s corn production for January to June this year reached 3.3 million metric tons (MMT), 36.8 percent higher than the 2.41 MMT produced in the same period last year, the Department of Agriculture’s National Corn Program said.
Agriculture Assistant Secretary Edilberto M. de Luna, chief of the national corn program, disclosed that the incremental output of 889,000 metric tons (MT) is due to the 45.2-percent hike in the production of yellow corn for the period.
The agency pointed to good weather, the availability of good corn varieties, good farm-gate price and the stable price of inputs as factors behind the increase in output.
“We noticed that yellow-corn production [for the first half] was up by as much as 752,000 MT. This is good news for our farmers,” de Luna told reporters on Wednesday.
He noted production increases in the corn-producing provinces of Cagayan Valley, Soccsksargen, Northern Mindanao, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the Ilocos region .
In the April survey of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), the agency attributed the increase in corn production to the 14.3-percent increase in harvest area and a 19.7-percent hike in yield for January to June.
The government noted that the average price of both yellow and white corn remained stable in the first half of 2011.
Figures from the DA showed that the farm-gate price of yellow corn is at P11.67 per kilogram, wholesale price is at P15.01 per kilo and the retail price is at P19.26 per kilo.
White corn was being traded at P14.85 per kilo at the farm gate, P16.10 per kilo wholesale, and P18.81 per kilo at the retail level.
The government said it is positive that the national corn-production target of 7.26 MMT for 2011 will be achieved through area expansion and yield improvement “assuming favorable market conditions and good market price.”
The BAS figures showed that from January to September, total corn output will reach 5.66 MMT, up by almost 20 percent from 4.73 MMT in 2010. Output of yellow corn may reach 3.96 MMT, while white-corn production could reach almost 1.7 MMT.
