Economic Performance. The country posted a 6.21 percent increase in Gross National Product (GNP) in 2006. The growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 5.37 percent. The agriculture sector contributed 18.70 percent to the GDP and registered a 3.85 percent growth. All sub-sectors posted output gains except poultry. The crops sub-sector which comprised half of the agricultural output surpassed its year-ago performance by putting up a 3.94 percent expansion.

Population, Labor Force and Wages. In 2006, total projected population based on the 2000 CPH was 86.97 million persons. Males still outnumbered the females. In the same year, about 35.79 million persons were in the labor force and 92 percent of them were employed. Agriculture sector absorbed 35.8 percent of the employed persons in 2006. Agricultural wage rates in nominal terms continued to increase while in real terms, these went down during the reference years. In the first semester of 2006, nominal wages of palay and corn farmers were higher by 26 and 18 index points compared to the 2000 wages, respectively.

Farm Structure. The 2002 Census of Agriculture reported that there were 4.8 million agricultural farms with a total land area of 9.7 million hectares nationwide. About 79 percent of these agricultural farms covering about 8.0 million hectares were owned and partly owned. About 56 percent of the country’s farms constituting a total area of 5.4 million hectares had two to three parcels.

Agricultural Support. Government expenditures in agriculture increased to P27.52 billion in 2006. However, its share in the national government budget went down to 2.61 percent. On the other hand, agricultural loans amounted to P584.63 billion comprising 3.3 percent of the total loans. In particular, credit support for production purposes reached P168.66 billion. This represented an increase of 13.13 percent from the 2005 record. The expansion in irrigation services provided by the government remained minimal. Irrigation development in 2006 at 45.67 percent inched up by only one percent. About 1.43 million hectares of farmlands were irrigated nationwide.

Production Performance. Palay output improved by 4.96 percent. Corn production surged by 15.78 percent. Similar trend was noted for sugarcane production which appreciated by 6.23 percent. Coconut production grew by 0.90 percent. Increased outputs were observed for banana, pineapple, cassava, tomato, eggplant and rubber.

Hog and dairy production expanded by about 3.70 percent. Production declines of 2.33 to 3.44 percent were reported for carabao, cattle and goat. Production of chicken went down by 0.80 percent while that of duck dropped by 6.85 percent. In the case of egg production, it was up by 3.11 percent for chicken and down by 6.01 percent for duck.

Production in commercial fisheries declined by 4.70 percent but municipal fisheries and aquaculture had 9 to 10 percent output gains.

Prices. On the average, prices received by farmers for agricultural commodities in 2006 were 70.8 index points higher than the 1994 prices. The rice and corn farmers had an average price gain of 87.7 index points. Rootcrops had the biggest price increment of 140 index points. In the same year, prices paid by consumers for goods and services were 37.9 index points above the 2000 prices. The increase was 30.6 index points for food, beverage and tobacco.

International Trade. The country’s exports and imports of agricultural products continuously increased over the three reference years. Revenues from agricultural exports amounted to US$ 2.78 billion in 2006, higher by 3.32 percent from the previous year’s earnings. Meanwhile, there was an 8.54 percent growth in agricultural import expenditures which amounted to US$ 4.32 billion.

Coconut oil, banana and pineapple and products remained the top three agricultural exports in 2006. Coconut oil was still leading despite its declining volume and value. Major markets were Netherlands and USA for coconut oil, Japan for fresh banana, and USA for pineapple and products. On the other hand, wheat and meslin surpassed the country’s rice imports and became the top agricultural imports in 2006.