Crop Diversification in the Asia-Pacific region - United Nations in ...

The objectives of this paper are threefold, namely: a) to review the existing cropdiversification schemes in the country; b) to present the opportunities and constraints in theadoption of crop diversification; and c) to review government policies related to cropdiversification.2. CROP PRODUCTION AND ECONOMICS SCENARIO2.1 Crop Production AreaIn the 1991 Census of Agriculture and Fisheries, there were 9.97 million hectares ofagricultural land (BAS, 1997). Of these, 55.3 percent of the farmlands were used forgrowing temporary crops and 41.8 percent were planted to permanent crops. There were4.61 million farms and the average national farm size was 2.16 hectares; 37 percent of thefarms were less than a hectare in size.The total area devoted to agriculture has been declining. It can be noted in Table 1that in 1989, the area for agriculture was 13,147,100 hectares; in 1998, this was reduced to11,664,600 hectares, a decrease of 1.48 million hectares. Cereal crops dominate theproduction area for the period under review considering rice and corn to be the staple foodsof the Filipinos. From 1989 to 1993, more area was planted to corn than rice; however, from1994 to 1998, more area was used for rice production.Coconut, banana, sugar cane, cassava, and pineapple are considered major crops interms of area planted and export potential. Among the commercial crops, it is interesting tonote that there was a tremendous increase in area planted to mango, that is, from 56,400hectares in 1989 to 93,900 hectares in 1998. This can be attributed to the export potential ofthis fruit.2.2 Volume of Crop ProductionTable 2 presents the annual production of both major and minor crops in thePhilippines. Lowest production for both rice and corn was observed in 1998 at 8,554.8metric tonnes and 3,823.2 metric tonnes, respectively. However, in 1999 (report of theBureau of Agricultural Statistics), rice production increased to 11,700 metric tonnes (27.4percent increase) while corn production increased by 761.4 metric tonnes (16.6 percentincrease).There is a declining trend in coconut production. Lowest production was observedduring the last two years. This has been attributed to felling of trees for lumber productionand the relatively old coconut trees. On the other hand, mango production increased due tothe increase in area planted. Highest production was observed in 1997 (987.1 metric tonnes).In general, the production of major and other crops did not change dramatically during theperiod under review.The low production of agricultural crops in 1998 was due to the occurrence oftyphoons "Loleng" and "Gading".96