Inside pages... Mindanao town seals cacao deal with international buyer MinDA chief urges Mindanao execs to submit viable tourism projects
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Academe sector expands inter-EAGA ties through educ exchange programs
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Phil to host largest subregional trade fair and business gab
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M
indanao
Review
The official publication of the Mindanao Development Authority
August 2014
Volume 1, Issue No. 01
Mindanao agri products post solid growth
Mindanao is still the country’s top producer of pineapple (main photo), banana, rubber, and coffee (inset photos l-r) in 2013.
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indanao continues to make substantial contributions to the country’s agriculture output, maintaining its strength as an agriculture-based economy despite natural calamities that pulled down production in some sectors. Selected industrial crops, fruit crops, and fisheries in Mindanao fared well in their production output as reported in the “Performance of the Philippine Agriculture” by the Department of Agriculture - Bureau of Agricultural Statistics 2013. The island-region accounted for almost 100 percent share in the nation’s rubber production in 2013. Out of 444,793 metric tons (MT) produced by the country, 444,653 MT were sourced from Mindanao. This represents a minimal growth of 0.4 percent, spurred by an increase in areas planted and in number of mature tappable trees. “Mindanao is the biggest rubber producer in the country, attributed to rich soil and good
climatic conditions in its rubber-producing regions,” said MinDA Chair Luwalhati Antonino. Zamboanga Peninsula was the country’s top rubber producer with a 43.9 percent share in the total output, followed by South Cotabato Sultan Kudarat Sarangani General Santos (SOCSKSARGEN) Growth Area at 38.9 percent and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) at 10.5 percent. Combined production of these two regions accounted for 93.3 percent of the nation’s rubber production in 2013. Mindanao also contributed 88.8 percent to the total pineapple output in the same year, contributing 2,182,171 MT to the country’s total production of 2,458,423 MT, representing a 2.4 percent growth. Production growth was influenced by reduced insect infestation and bigger fruits harvested in Zamboanga Peninsula, and expansion of corporate farms in Northern Mindanao.
The country’s top pineapple producers in 2013 were Northern Mindanao and SOCSKSARGEN whose combined output is 87.4 percent of Mindanao’s total production. While banana production contracted by 7.2 percent in the island-region, producing 7,013,207 MT in 2013 compared to 7,559,047 MT in 2012, it still accounted for 81.1 percent of the total banana production in the country last year. The decline is attributed to banana plantations in Davao Province that have not yet fully recovered after being levelled by Typhoon Pablo in December 2012. Despite this, Davao continues to be the country’s top banana producer with a 37 percent share in the national production, followed by Northern Mindanao at 20 percent and SOCSKSARGEN at 14 percent. Mindanao’s cassava production grew by 7.2 percent, climbing from 1,690,383 MT in 2012 to 1,812,243 MT in 2013 backed by increased demand for commercial use, prompting farmers in Bukidnon and ARMM to expand their farms. Mindanao’s total cassava output accounted for 76.8 percent of the nation’s overall production of 2,360,527 MT, with ARMM and Northern Mindanao as the highest producing regions with a combined share of 69.3 percent. Owing also to the destruction brought by Typhoon Pablo in Davao and crop shifting from coffee to banana in Compostela Valley and Davao City, total production of all varieties of coffee in dried berries in Mindanao dropped by 9.0 percent, from 65,453 MT in 2012 to 59,564 MT last year. Turn to page 7
Mindanao in Figures: Mindanao’s total trade in 2013 clinched US$7.6 billion freight-on-board (FOB) receipts which registered a remarkable 15 percent increase despite the natural calamities that hit the islandregion’s agricultural lands and production areas in the past two years.