MANILA, Philippines — Cagayan Valley still expects bumper harvests of palay and corn this year in spite of the damage wrought by two successive typhoons.

In a report to Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala, during his visit from October 19 to 20, DA Region 2 director Lucrecio Alviar, Jr. said Cagayan Valley may yet produce record harvests of palay at 2.15 million metric tons (MMT) and corn at 1.6 MMT if it spared of typhoons in the last two months of the year.

Alviar added that in spite the crop damage caused by typhoons Juaning, Mina, Pedring and Quiel, the region’s projected 2011 palay harvest of 2.15 MMT will be 23 percent higher than last year’s production of 1.746 MMT and 3.5 percent better than in 2009 at 2.077 MMT.

The expected 2011 annual harvest of 1.6 MMT will be 27 percent more than last year’s 1.26 MMT and better than 2009's total yield of 1.59 MMT.

Alviar confessed the four typhoons damaged roughly 146,870 MT of palay in Cagayan Valley, pulling down the 2011 target production of 2.29 MMT by 6.4 percent.

Consulting with farmers and local officials during his recent three-day (October 19-21) visit of eight provinces in Regions 2 and 3, Alcala assured them the country’s rice sufficiency program remains on track.

“The typhoons and floods may have affected our 2011 target rice and corn production, but they were not enough to offset what we have achieved in the first three quarters of the year,” Alcala told 10,000 farmers and local officials during consultations in Cagayan, Isabela, Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan.