May 16--PHILIPPINE farm output grew at a slower pace in the first quarter this year amid earlier-than-usual inclement weather.In a statement, the Bureau of Agriculture Statistics (BAS) said the agriculture sector inched up 2.02 percent to P309.3 billion at end-March.

The sector, which comprises a fifth of gross domestic product (GDP), grew 3 percent in the same three-month period last year. A proxy for economic output, GDP is the amount of goods and services produced in a country.

Romeo Recide, BAS director, said all sub-sectors posted "output gains," singling out palay production, which rose 5.13 percent, and chicken output, which increased 4.25 percent.

In the crops sub-sector, palay production hit 3.94 million metric tons from 3.74 million in the first quarter of 2008, with total value rising 26.32 percent to P59.669 billion this year.

Recide said the palay sub-sector's expansion was 3.17 percentage points higher than its 1.96-percent growth in the same period last year, adding this was due to the sustained implementation of FIELDS.

A Department of Agriculture program, FIELDS stands for Fertilizer, Irrigation facilities and other rural infrastructure like farm-to-market roads, Education and extension work, Loans, Dryers and other post-harvest facilities and Seeds.

The major sources of production gains were the following areas: Bicol, Central Luzon, Cagayan Valley, Soccsksargen (South Cotabato-Cotabato-Sultan Kudarat-Saranggani-General Santos City) and the Ilocos region.

Corn production, however, contracted 3.39 percent 1.93 million metric tons, even as gross values rose 20.94 percent to P26.029 billion.

Other big output gainers in the crops sub-sector were cassava at 5.08 percent; banana, 5.04 percent; tomato, 3.37 percent; pineapple, 3.62 percent; and tobacco, 3.40 percent.

Recide also attributed the across-the-board output gains to the implementation of the government's intervention measures, such as its irrigation maintenance projects for the benefit of palay farmers and the dispersal of fishing gears and fingerlings to fisher folk.

The fisheries sub-sector grew 3.49 percent, as municipal fisheries surpassed last year's performance and expanded by 4.79 percent. Aquaculture registered a 3.88-percent increase in production. The gross earnings from the sub-sector amounted to P53.3 billion for a 7.19-percent increase from last year's level.

The livestock sub-sector made a turnaround by expanding 2.37 percent from the previous year's contraction despite the emergence of Ebola-Reston virus on a swine farm in Bulacan.

Next to palay, poultry registered the biggest gain among all sub-sectors, growing 4.08 percent owing to significant increases in the production of chicken, which rose 4.25 percent, and chicken eggs, which expanded 5.28 percent.

The poultry sub-sector's gross output was valued at P36.8 billion or 11.77 percent higher than the 2008 level.

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