MANILA — Losses to local agriculture due to the El Niño have reached PHP5.05 billion as of Tuesday (April 2) from the PHP4.35 billion recorded over the weekend, representing around 276,568 metric tons (MT) of rice and corn crops that were destroyed.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, in a press briefing, said a total of 177,743 hectares farm lands and 164,672 farmers have so far been affected by the dry spell.
For rice, some PHP2.69 billion with volume production of 125,590 MT were damaged affecting 111,851 hectares and 108,845 farmers in 37 rice producing provinces nationwide.
Piñol said palay losses were equivalent to 0.63 percent of total production and would not affect the DA’s target of 20 million MT for this year.
“Losses in palay will not have adverse impact on the national rice production. We are still keeping our production target of 20 million MT,” he said.
The mounting losses in corn where recorded at PHP2.36 billion, which is equivalent to 150,978 MT volume production loss.
The DA chief said the loss in corn was equivalent to 1.2 percent of the total production for 2019.
He said some PHP2 billion fund has been allotted for the immediate interventions and assistance to El Niño-affected farmers.
Meanwhile, Piñol said there is a need for institutional change in handling calamites like El Niño, drought, and other weather disturbances.
“The only way to mitigate the damage especially in agriculture is to come up with a viable national irrigation program that would prepare the farms for calamities such as dry spell and droughts,” he said.
Piñol said he also presented, during Monday’s Cabinet meeting, the proposal of Israeli Agro-Industrial Co. to fund and build some 6,200 units of solar-powered irrigation systems (SPIS) in the country that can irrigate 500,000 hectares of agricultural land.
The total cost of these SPIS is PHP44 billion to be funded by the Israeli firm with only the setting up of project monitoring office as the counterpart of the Philippine government.
Around 2.9 million hectares of farm lands nationwide still lack proper irrigation, he noted.
SPIS consists of one or more solar panels, a pump, electronic controls or a controller device to operate the pump, storage tank and conveyance structures.
Piñol said alternative and sustainable small irrigation projects like the SPIS would help farms become much less dependent on the huge dams for water, thus freeing the supply for the use of Metro Manila and other urban centers.
