THE country’s production of palay (unmilled rice) increased by 4.7 percent to 7.49 million metric tons (MMT) in the fourth quarter of 2019 from 7.16 MMT in the same period a year earlier, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

In its “Palay and Corn Quarterly Bulletin” for the October-to-December period, the statistics agency attributed the growth to higher yield per hectare to 4.07 MT from 3.87 MT year-on-year, despite the harvest area contracting to 1.84 MMT from 1.85 MMT.