DA: Only a 2.2 percent growth rate expected in 2007 - Malaya 11.10.2006

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) told the Senate yesterday that it is looking at only a 2.2 percent growth in agriculture next year owing to the expected onset of the "El Niño" weather phenomenon in December.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap advised the Senate committee on finance hearing the proposed DA budget for next year that the 2.2 percent growth forecast for 2007 means a drop of about 50 percent from this year’s target of 4.5 percent.

He blamed the "very modest" figure on the lack of water.

Yap said the decline in agriculture would also translate to a 1 percentage point drop in the country’s gross domestic product which measures goods and services produced in the country.
He said the DA will ask Congress to realign some funds in the 2007 budget – a little more than the P1 billion allotted for the same program in 2004 - to finance "mitigating measures" against El Niño.

Yap said the money will be used to repair and construct irrigation systems and catch basins and to procure and distribute seeds which grow on less water through the DA’s PhilRice.
"When all things fail, we will resort to cloud seeding," he added.

Sen. Ramon Magsaysay, chair of the agriculture panel, said the long-term solution to El Niño is the protection of the country’s watersheds. Yap said he will take up watershed protection with Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes. – Dennis Gadil