Delay in August corn harvest expected in Philippines

Philippine corn farmers said the traditional August crop harvest may be delayed by at least a month due to the current dry spell.

Philippine Maize Federation president Roger Navarro said the next harvest of corn could be delayed by a minimum of one month if it would not rain by the middle of May.

He said farmers in Regions 10 and 12 did not plant corn due to the lack of rainfall in their areas. These areas along with Region 2 are the country's major corn-growing provinces. Farmers in Region 2 have started planting corn but those in Regions 10 and 12 have not.

Corn planting should have started this early May in anticipation of the main crop harvest in August. Navarro, however, said the delay in harvest could be beneficial to farmers due to the prevailing low farm-gate price of corn.

''Local corn is about PHP11 per kilogramme in the domestic market but the global price now at PHP13 per kilogramme,'' he said.

He warned that the importation of some 1.5 million feed wheat ordered by the private sector in the first quarter and the arrival of about 300,000-400,000 tonnes of corn from Indonesia and Thailand might further soften the price of the local crop.

Meanwhile, local feed millers said they could not wait for the government to announce the corn shortage. The feed milling industry said the shortfall in corn production for the year may compromise poultry and livestock output.