Palay production in the first quarter was down 1.97 percent to 4.69 million metric tons, the latest estimate of the Philippine Statistics Authority showed.
Initial estimates of the PSA projected first quarter palay harvest a gain of 0.8 percent to 4.81 million metric tons.
Damage caused by El Nino, as the latest estimate showed, hurt production on both irrigated and rainfed farm lands.
Palay production in rainfed areas is estimated by the PSA to have declined to 1.084 million metric tons from 1.094 million metric tons in the previous year while harvest in irrigated farmlands was down to 3.599 million metric tons from 3.685 million metric tons.
PSA estimate showed corn production in the first quarter was higher at 2.532 million metric tons from 2.519 million metric tons as higher yellow corn output more than made up for lower white corn harvest.
Meantime, the price per kilo of well-milled rice rose in April to P56.98 from P56.95 in March. The earlier survey in April showed the price at P57.04 a kilo. For regular-milled rice, a kilo in April rose to a price of P51.41 from P51.21 in March and P51.38 as showed in the survey conducted earlier in April.
