AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHING

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Division includes units mainly

engaged in growing crops, raising animals, growing and harvesting timber, and

harvesting fish and other animals from farms or their natural habitats. The division

makes a distinction between two basic activities: production, and support services

to production. Included as production activities are horticulture, livestock

production and aquaculture, forestry and logging, and fishing, hunting and

trapping.

The term 'agriculture' is used broadly to refer to both the growing and

cultivation of horticultural and other crops (excluding forestry), and the controlled

breeding, raising or farming of animals (excluding aquaculture).

Aquaculturally activities include the controlled breeding, raising or farming

of fish, mollusks and crustaceans.

Forestry and logging activities include growing, maintaining and harvesting

forests, as well as gathering forest products. Fishing, hunting and trapping include

gathering or catching marine life such as fish or shellfish, or other animals, from

their uncontrolled natural environments in water or on land. Also included in the

division are units engaged in providing support services to the units engaged in

production activities.
 The Philippines is still primarily an agricultural country despite the plan to

make it an industrialized economy by 2000. Most citizens still live in rural areas

and support themselves through agriculture. The country's agriculture sector is

made up of 4 sub-sectors: farming, fisheries, livestock, and forestry (the latter 2

sectors are very small), which together employ 39.8 percent of the labor force and

contribute 20 percent of GDP.

The country's main agricultural crops are rice, corn, coconut, sugarcane,

bananas, pineapple, coffee, mangoes, tobacco, and abaca (a banana-like plant).

Secondary crops include peanut, cassava, camote (a type of root crop), garlic,

onion, cabbage, eggplant, kalamansi (a variety of lemon), rubber, and cotton. The

year 1998 was a bad year for agriculture because of adverse weather conditions.

Sector output shrank by 8.3 percent, but it posted growth the following year. Yet,

hog farming and commercial fishing posted declines in their gross revenues in

1999. The sector is burdened with low productivity for most of its crops.

From 1990 to 2010, the Philippines has regained around 1,095,000 (16.7%)

of its forest cover. This is largely due to tireless initiatives from both the

government and independent advocacy groups.

Furthermore, the FMB’s National Greening Program, which was launched in

2011, has succeeded in rehabilitating approximately 1.6 million hectares of forest

as of December 2017. The program has been renamed the Enhanced National

Greening Program, and has been extended to 2028.

The Philippines, with an island-dwelling population of more than 93 million

and more than 7 100 islands, is a major fishing nation and the world’s second

largest archipelagic State.

In 2012, the Philippines ranked among the major fish producing countries in the

world with a total production of 3.1 million tones of fish, crustaceans, mollusks

and other aquatic animals. Aquaculture contributed 790 900 tones, or 25.4 percent,

to the total fish production. Much of its production is consumed locally with per

caput fish consumption amounting to 32.7 kg in 2011. In addition, the Philippines

is the world’s third largest producer of farmed seaweeds with a production of 1.8

million tones in 2012.

The fisheries and aquaculture industry employed an estimated 1.5 million

people in 2010 nationwide; with fisheries accounting for more than 1 million. The

fishing industry contributes an estimated 1.8 percent (valued at 196 billion pesos)

to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at current prices, respectively in

2012. In 2013, exports of fish and fishery products were valued at USD 1.2 billion.

Tuna was the top export commodity, followed by shrimp and prawns. In the same

year, imports were worth USD 264 million.

 The Philippines is an archipelagic country with some 7,100 islands. As such

it has more water than it has land. With a total territorial water of 2,200,000 km2, it

only has 299,735 km2 of land area of which 102,984 km2 or 34% is agricultural.

About 94% of the total land area is contained in the eleven largest islands of which

Luzon in the north and Mindanao in the south are the two largest, Figure 1. The

thousands of islands endow the Philippines with a total coastline of 17,460 km.

Within its landmasses are freshwater and brackish water swamplands, lakes, rivers

and reservoirs as shown in Table 1.

The population of the Philippines stood at 68.349 million during the last

national census in 1995. With an average of 1.6 million births a year, the country’s

population is expected to reach 76.3 million by the year 2000. About 38% of the

population is below 15 years old while only 3.5% is older than 64 years old.

The labor force is 27.72 million strong in 1997, with unemployment rate at

8.7%. The largest labor force is found in the service sector at 42.5%, followed

closely by agriculture with 40.8%. Only 16.7% comes from industry.

Even with a large agriculture-based labor force, the Gross Value Added from

Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery is the lowest at PHP184,712 million as against

PHP320,689 million from Industry as can be seen in Table 2. The Service sector
has the highest contribution to the Gross Domestic Product with PHP387,615

million.

Reference:

 https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/economies/Asia-and-the-Pacific/

Philippines-AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz6nH140RdN

https://www.flipscience.ph/plants-and-animals/5-facts-forests-philippines/

http://www.fao.org/3/x6943e/x6943e05.htm