The agriculture and fisheries production, which represent about a tenth of the gross domestic product, declined 1.5 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority show.
“This was attributed to the decline in livestock and fisheries production,” the PSA said in a statement Monday. The second-quarter figure brought farm output in the first six months of 2021 to a negative 2.5 percent.
Crops, which accounted for 56.2 percent of the total agricultural production, rose 3.1 percent with palay and corn harvests posting increased harvests.
Palay production increased 1.2 percent to 4.17 million metric tons from 4.12 million MT, while corn production grew 6.3 percent to 1.43 million MT from 1.35 million MT, according to the PSA.
It also noted a double-digit growth for sugarcane at 34.8 percent, potato at 24.8 percent, onion at 22.0 percent, and cabbage at 13.1 percent. Increases in production levels were registered for cacao at 9.9 percent, rubber at 5.9 percent, and pineapple at 4.6 percent.
There were improved harvests for tomato at 3.0 percent, ampalaya at 2.7 percent, eggplant at 2.1 percent, banana at 1.3 percent, coconut at 0.8 percent, and sweet potato at 0.1 percent.
The livestock subsector dropped 19.3 percent, pulled down by the 26.2-percent decline in hog production. Poultry production increased 2.5 percent, with duck, chicken eggs, and duck eggs posting output increments.
Fisheries sank 1.1 percent, with double-digit declines noted for yellowfin tuna, roundscad, threadfin bream, frigate tuna, fimbriated sardines, skipjack, and Bali sardinella.
The PSA said that at current prices, the value of agricultural production amounted to P503.3 billion in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, the PSA revised the first-quarter gross domestic product performance to -3.9 percent from the preliminary estimate of -4.2 percent. The PSA will release the second-quarter GDP data Tuesday.
The PSA revises the GDP estimates based on an approved revision policy consistent with international standard practices on national accounts revisions.
The PSA said the major contributors to the revision in the first-quarter data were professional and business services, from -6.5 percent to -4.4 percent; construction, from -24.2 percent to -22.6 percent; and real estate and ownership of dwellings, from -13.2 percent to -11.7 percent.
It said the net primary income from the rest of the world and gross national income were also revised from -75.8 percent to -75.6 percent and -10.9 percent to -10.6 percent, respectively, in the first quarter of 2021.
The PSA previously reported that GDP in the first quarter contracted by 4.2 percent, an improvement from the -8.3 percent decline in the fourth quarter but deeper compared to the 0.7-percent decline in the first quarter of 2020.
The economy contracted by 9.6 percent in 2020 amid the global health crisis, the worst since the end of World War 2.
Economic managers earlier kept the GDP growth forecast at 6 percent to 7 percent this year, on the back of the rollout of the vaccination program that is expected to restore business and consumer confidence.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III and Economic Planning Secretary Karl Chua predicted that the GDP growth would revert to the positive territory in the second quarter.
Global credit watcher Moody’s Investors Service said the country’s pace of vaccination program against the COVID-19 virus would determine how fast the Philippine economy would recover from the pandemic. For 2021 and 2022, the rating agency placed its growth forecasts for the Philippines at 5.8 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively.
