MOUNTAIN BOUNTY Farmers harvest cabbage in Atok, Benguet. Increased agricultural production in the Cordillera helped propel the region’s economy in 2017. —KARLSTON LAPNITEN
BAGUIO CITY—After years of low productivity, the farming economy in Cordillera shot up dramatically from a negative 4.8-percent growth rate in 2016 to 5.2 percent last year due to a year of fairly good weather.
This was one of the biggest surprises for economists, with the latest gross regional domestic product (GRDP) showing an improved economy of the Cordillera from a lackluster period ending in 2016 with 2.3 percent to 12.1 percent in 2017. The GRDP measures the value of goods and services produced in the Cordillera.
Rain belt
Cordillera farms, many carved out from mountainsides, are almost always vulnerable to strong typhoons being located in the country’s rain belt, said Susan Balanza, Cordillera planning officer of the Department of Agriculture.
But last year, harvests were bountiful due to “fewer strong typhoons, along with the seasonal monsoon, compared to the drier weather conditions in 2016,” said Marie Olga Difuntorum, a senior economist of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
The good weather helped increase palay and corn production last year, she said.
Rice producer
Kalinga province remains a top rice producer in Cordillera, making the region rice self-sufficient, Balanza said, although the absence of full road connectivity has forced Kalinga grains to be sold to its neighboring provinces. Benguet and Mt. Province still get rice from other provinces like Pangasinan.
The growth reports also showed increased production of major vegetables like carrots, beans, cabbages, lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli in Benguet.
Erratic
Difuntorum said the economy’s upswing in 2017 was the region’s fifth positive growth report since 2013.
Neda previously described the region’s rate of economic performance as erratic, tracking a 5.4-percent growth rate in 2013 only to see it drop to 3.3 percent in 2014. The growth rate rose again in 2015 and then plummeted once more in 2016.
Increased public spending, with the start of the government’s “Build, Build, Build” initiative, as well as huge investment in private construction may account for the region’s economic growth, Difuntorum said. —VINCENT CABREZA