This Special Release (SR) is the first in a series of Palay Situation Reports, which present the estimates of palay production, area harvested and yield per hectare. This quarter’s release covers palay situation in the country from January to December 2023.

Palay production was registered at 20.06 million metric tons in 2023. This was higher by 1.5 percent from the previous year’s output of 19.76 million metric tons. The 2023 palay production was the highest in the series, which starts in 1987. (Figure 1 and Table 1)

Figure 1. Volume of Palay Production and Year-on-Year Change
Philippines, January to December: 2021 to 2023^p

Central Luzon was the top producer of palay with 3.64 million metric tons or 18.1 percent share to the total palay production in 2023. This was followed by Cagayan Valley and Western Visayas with corresponding annual productions of 3.03 million metric tons and 2.26 million metric tons. These three regions shared 44.5 percent to the country’s palay production in 2023. (Table 2)

Area harvested with palay from January to December 2023 was estimated at 4.82 million hectares. This indicates an increase of 0.2 percent from the 4.80 million hectares area harvested in 2022. (Figure 2 and Table 1)

Figure 2. Palay Area Harvested and Year-on-Year Change
Philippines, January to December: 2021 to 2023^p

In terms of area harvested, Central Luzon remained the top contributing region with 692.88 thousand hectares or 14.4 percent share to the total palay area harvested. This was followed by Western Visayas and Cagayan Valley with 666.30 thousand hectares (13.8%) and 632.73 thousand hectares (13.1%), respectively. (Table 3) 

In 2023, the yield per hectare of palay was posted at 4.17 metric tons. This indicates an uptrend of 1.3 percent from the 4.11 metric tons yield per hectare in the same period of the previous year. (Figure 3 and Table 1)

Figure 3. Palay Yield per Hectare and Year-on-Year Change
Philippines, January to December: 2021 to 2023^p