ILOILO CITY — Calamity-stricken farmers from municipalities of Capiz have been provided with 20, 228 bags of certified seeds from out of the buffer stocks of the Department of Agriculture (DA) regional field office in Western Visayas.
Rene Famoso, chief of the DA-6 operations division, on Tuesday said that from December 21, 2017 until January 18 this year, 18,436 bags of certified seeds weighing 40 kilos each were released. An additional 1,792 bags were delivered in the second week of January.
A farmer gets one bag of certified seeds for every one hectare of damaged rice field.
Famoso said the assistance last year was supposed to aid farmers affected by typhoons Urduja and Vinta. Some were able to replant while others did not.
Unfortunately, they were the same groups of farmers who again suffered the impact of tropical depression Agaton, he said.
He added that they were ready to deliver additional 2,000 bags this week.
Meantime, DA regional executive director Engr. Remelyn Recoter said that the farmers would get a separate indemnity from the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation. Almost 50 percent of those affected by calamities were insured.
A report presented by the DA during the meeting of the Regional Development Council (RDRRM) two weeks ago revealed that rice and corn were the most affected commodities.
A field validation by the agency revealed that rice crops mostly in their vegetative stage in Panay, Panit-an and Roxas City went under water. Also newly planted rice crops were washed out.
Citing data taken during “Urduja”, which preceded “Agaton”, the production loss of Capiz for rice represented 28 percent of the fourth quarter target for2017.
However, it only covered one percent of the annual production target of Western Visayas because the major rice producer for the region is Iloilo.
The report further said that 84 percent of the 15,000 hectares that were affected region-wide were from Capiz. And 3,400 hectares were totally damaged. Western Visayas has 322,000 hectares planted with rice crops.
The damage caused by “Urduja” was around PHP350. 6 million.
Meantime, the provincial DRRMC of Capiz identified more than 9,000 hectares of rice crops that were affected by “Agaton”.
On the other hand, 858 hectare of corn crops in Capiz were affected by “Urduja” valued at PHP5.4 million.
The damage represented 8.97 percent of the entire standing corn crop in Western Visayas. (PNA)