Palay production in Eastern Visayas increases by 5.2% during the first quarter of 2019

By PSA-8
August 8, 2019

TACLOBAN CITY – Palay production in Eastern Visayas exhibited a 5.2 percent growth, from 279,728 metric tons (MT) in the 1st quarter of 2018 to 294,402 MT in 2019.

The province of Leyte posted the highest palay production in Eastern Visayas at 148,212 MT in the 1st quarter of 2019. It comprised more than half (50.3 percent) of the total palay production in the region. Samar ranked second with 51,813 MT, accounting for 17.6 percent of the region’s total palay production. Northern Samar followed with 49,097 MT production contributing 16.7 percent share to the total production. Eastern Samar and Southern Leyte shared 8.2 percent (24,076 MT) and 4.4 percent (12,862 MT), respectively. Meanwhile, Biliran had the least contribution with only 2.8 percent and only 8,342 MT of palay produced.

Area harvested for irrigated palay in the region went up by 5.0 percent, from 30,713 hectares in the 1st quarter of 2018 to 32,249 hectares in the 1st quarter of 2019. All provinces, except for Northern Samar, exhibited increases in area harvested of irrigated palay. Northern Samar posted a decline of 0.6 percent.

The province of Leyte, being the biggest contributor of irrigated palay, has also registered the highest area harvested for irrigated palay with 77.4 percent share to the total area harvested. Meanwhile, Eastern Samar posted the least area harvested for irrigated palay with 0.01 percent share.

Among the provinces, Southern Leyte recorded the highest yield per hectare at 4.49 MT per hectare during the 1st quarter of 2019. However, this figure was lower by 0.3 percent compared with the 4.50 MT per hectare in the 1st quarter of 2018.

Biliran closely followed at 4.41 MT per hectare. This figure was lower by 2.4 percent, from 4.52 MT per hectare of the same quarter in 2018. Leyte ranked third with 4.28 MT per hectare, which was slightly higher by 0.3 percent from its figure in same quarter of 2018.