Did you know that Region 1 is one of the greatest contributors in the country’s total volume of production of some major agricultural products in 2020?
Based on the report presented by the Philippine Statistics Authority during the Agriculture and Fisheries Forum, the Ilocos Region had the highest yield of mango, eggplant, and tomato ranking as the 1st contributor over other regions nationwide.
The Ilocos is also one of the country’s top producers of palay and corn.
In mango production last year, the Philippines had a total of 739,250 metric tons (MT) of harvested fruits and 178, 244 MT or 24.11 percent of which were logged in the Ilocos.
For tomato, 222,002 MT were totally accumulated and the region shared the 73,435 MT or some 33.08 percent.
The region also ranked first in the production of eggplant since out of totally harvested 242,730 MT across all regions, 95,444 MT or 39.32 percent were from Region 1.
While ranking 4th in palay production, the region had accumulated a total of 1,902,662MT or 59.67 percent of the country’s total rice crops.
The region was able to produce 563,388MT of corn or share of 6.94 percent in the national volume, thus placing 5th on national scale.
Among all the production of said major crops, except for tomato, the highest percentage of the regional yield was from the province of Pangasinan.
This agricultural productivity amid the unexpected surge of the COVID-19 pandemic is a clear manifestation of how the various programs, projects, and activities postulated by the government benefited the agricultural sector.
Different forms of assistance and other interventions were, and are continuously being extended by concerned agencies to ensure food security in the country.
Mostly, this reflects how resilient our farmers in the region are that they were able to deliver their job despite the extra challenges on their livelihood and threats on their health during those times when COVID-19 is all new and being extremely feared of.
Imagine, while some parts of the country experienced scarcity of agricultural supplies in the previous year during the seemingly endless lockdowns, we got ample amounts of vegetables, fruits, and rice available on our market.
Or even more than enough that we can still share the blessings to our kababayans in the metro. (JCR/AMB/CGC, PIA La Union)
