Agriculture took a battering by a series of typhoons last year but still wriggled out of the morass by posting an insignificant growth of 0.37 percent.

Fisheries remained the engine of expansion, claimed Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap, by posting a 2.45 percent growth and accounting for 26.4 percent of the total agricultural output last year.

The crops subsector took the brunt of climatic horrors, with production down by 1.42 percent, a figure that does not jibe with fears that more than 1.3 million metric tons (MMT) of rice would be lost due to the destruction wrought by Ondoy and Pepeng in the last quarter of the year.

Palay output dipped by 3.31 percent and is not expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the first quarter based on the supposed threat of the El Nino phenomenon.

In what appears to be a silver lining for agriculture, the livestock subsector rebounded from its negative performance in 2008, registering a 1.24 percent expansion, slightly higher than the 1.16 percent expansion of hog production. Its total share of agricultural output was 12.47 percent.

“The gains of the first three quarters were cut by huge production losses during the fourth quarter of 2009,” Yap said in citing the final annual growth report by the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS).

At current prices, the gross value of agricultural production reached P1.2 trillion in 2009, representing a 2.18 percent rise from the 2008 level.

Commercial fisheries expanded 2.67 percent, while aquaculture grew 2.89 percent and municipal fisheries by 1.14 percent.

BAS director Romeo Recide reported a growth of 1.82 percent for poultry, which had a 14.33 percent share of the total agricultural output. Chicken output was up by 1.53 percent while the production of eggs rose by a decent 5.04 percent.

For the livestock subsector, the production of cattle and dairy registered gains of 2.49 percent and 3.33 percent, respectively.

In 2009, the gross value of livestock production rose by 6.5 percent.

Corn production was up by 1.53 percent, coconut output rose by 2.20 percent while sugar yield was down by 10.77 percent. Other gainers were banana, cassava, eggplant and tobacco.

Yap said the DA will devote the bulk of its budget this year to battle climate change and cope with the impact of trade liberalization.

Up to 86 percent of its P47 billion budget will go to various support services, such as the provision of flatbed dryers, corn drying centrals, fishports, and storage warehouses for farm produce, market linkages, strengthening of regulatory and disease eradication capabilities, and the establishment of satellite-based remote sensing and geographic information systems.

Moreover, Yap said the DA is strengthening its statistics and forecasting capabilities, developing and distributing climate-ready crops seeds, which are submergence-, drought- and disease-tolerant, engineering climate change adapted infrastructure for production and processing; enabling more financing for agriculture through innovative weather-based insurance schemes and disseminating more information, knowledge and training in crops science and planting techniques.

Consistent with the Arroyo administration’s goal of attaining rice sufficiency by 2013, DA is allocating 36 percent of its total banner program budget to the GMA Rice Program, while fisheries, particularly aquaculture development, is programmed to absorb 32 percent of the budget for programs and aquaculture will get P1billion.