The country's rice and corn production for the first quarter of 2006 increased by 7.23 percent and 20.5 percent, respectively compared to the same period last year, statistics of the Department of Agriculture show.

In its report released this week, DA said that rice production may reach 3.63 million metric tons while corn production, 1.51 million metric tons from January to March this year. In the first quarter of 2005, it was only 3.38 million metric tons for rice and 1.25 million metric tons for corn.

As of March 15, palay harvests reached 2.397 million metric tons, higher than last year's 2.136 million metric tons.

The harvest in about 693,204 hectares represents 67 percent of the total expected harvest area for January to March this year, DA said.

The harvests for rice during the period were higher by 10.6 percent in irrigated area with 1.902 million metric tons compared to 2005's 1.720 million metric tons. In rainfed areas, harvests increased by 19.1 percent, with 494,735 metric tons compared to only 415,492 metric tons in 2005.

Planting for the first quarter is also nearing completion with 703,453 hectares or 98 percent already planted.

As of March 15, 1,037,450 metric tons of corn from 432,855 hectares, representing 72 percent of the total expected hectarage for January to March 2006 were already harvested.

The figures are higher than last year's production of 1,002,203 metric tons in total area of 442,926 hectares, DA said.

However, the proportion of harvest area for corn as of March 15 this year was lower by 2.3 percent compared to the actual area harvested in the same period last year. Still, actual production surpassed that of the same period level in 2005 with improvement in yield by 6.2 percent, the report from DA added.*NLG

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