SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union – The rice production in Region 1 for Calendar Year 2022 increased by 3.31 percent, according to the report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in Ilocos. Regional Executive Director Annie Q. Bares of the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office 1 (DA RFO1) said the PSA reported data on rice production in the region during the Rice Assessment and Planning Workshop conducted by the DA-RFO1 on May 8-11, 2023, in Caoayan, Ilocos Sur. For CY 2022, Region 1 produced more than 1.9 million metric tons (MT) as compared to 1.7 million MT in 2021. The 2022 Ilocos region rice production constitutes 9.5 percent of national overall rice production output. It was also the highest in production and yield growth nationwide. In the provincial level, Pangasinan remains the top producer with more than 1.2 million MT followed by Ilocos Norte at 330,749 MT, Ilocos Sur at 244,213.83 MT, and La Union at 171,276.53 MT. “For this year, we have a lot of activities to strengthen the performance and sustain the production parameters of the national rice program,” said Bares. She said that there is a need for convergence in order to further increase the region's rice production efficiency. “Convergence is now our modality. We need convergence both in services and allied sectors, especially with our Irrigators’ Associations (IAs) and Small Water Irrigation System Associations (SWISA). And with DA, we need to strengthen our partnership with the National Irrigation Administration as irrigation is extremely essential to rice production aside from other agricultural inputs,” she said. For the past five years, the Ilocos region has remained among the top rice-producing regions in the country.