MANILA — The agriculture and fisheries sector has incurred damages and losses to the tune of PHP565.19 million due to the onslaught of tropical storms “Henry” and “Inday” intensified by the monsoon rains this month.
In a report Monday (July 23) on agriculture chief Emmanuel Pinol’s official Facebook account, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said latest available data show production losses reached PHP428.03 million for the rice sub-sector and PHP1 million for the corn sub-sector. The fisheries sub-sector, it added, suffered damages and losses of PHP136.16 million.
The DA said damaged were 26,667 hectares of rice paddies in Pangasinan, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, Batangas, Rizal, Laguna, Occidental Mindoro, Negros Occidental, and Aklan provinces.
Production losses in these areas were estimated at 314 metric tons.
“Seedbeds were also affected, wherein a total of 1,338 bags of rice were reportedly washed out,” the DA said.
Losses in corn totaled about 61 metric tons in 60 hectares across Pangasinan’s Asingan and Binalonan municipalities, the department added.
The damages and losses included fishing gears and paraphernalia in the Cordillera Administrative Region and Regions 2, 3, and 4-A.
The DA said it would be distributing to the affected farmers 114,596 bags of rice seed buffer stocks, 10,472 bags of corn seeds, and 578 kilograms of vegetable seeds.
The DA also assured assisting affected fisherfolk. (Catherine Teves/PNA)
