The Philippines’s agricultural damage and losses due to Typhoon “Karding” breached the P3-billion mark after the Department of Agriculture (DA) received and validated additional reports from the affected areas.

In its latest damage assessment report, the DA Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Operations Center (DA-DRRM OpCen) said the estimated agricultural losses across seven regions reached P3.12 billion.

The DA-DRRM OpCen added that Karding damaged 170,762 hectares of farmlands with an estimated production volume loss of 158,117 metric tons in the regions of Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Bicol Region and Western Visayas.

The DA-DRRM OpCen said 108,594 farmers and fisherfolk lost income due to the typhoon’s devastation.

“Affected commodities include rice, corn, cassava, abaca, high value crops, livestock and poultry, and fisheries. Damage has also been incurred in agricultural infrastructures, machineries and equipment. These values are subject to validation,” it said in its report published on Monday morning.

The DA-DRRM OpCen report showed that the damage and losses in the rice sector amounted to P2.05 billion with an estimated affected area at 163,162 hectares. The report added that 134,205 metric tons (MT) of palay were damaged by Karding, which translated to 0.66 percent of the estimated total palay output this year of 20.25 million MT.

“While for corn, damage and losses amounted to P65.4 million with affected area at 2,003 [hectares] and volume of production loss at 2,635 MT [volume of production loss for corn is 0.05 percent of the annual total production target volume for corn, which is 5.11 million MT],” it said.

The DA-DRRM OpCen has recorded P831.29 million worth of damage and losses in the high value crops sector after Karding damaged 5,587 hectares of assorted fruits, vegetables, legumes and spices with an estimated production loss of 20,456 MT.

The DA-DRRM OpCen added that the recorded damage and losses in the fisheries sector has now reached P116.55 million, while damage to infrastructure reached P26.30 million. Livestock and poultry raisers incurred P12.86 million in losses after 48,199 heads of various animals were affected by the supertyphoon.

The DA-DRRM OpCen said it has now recorded P1.47 million of damage and losses in the cassava sector after 3 hectares of farms were damaged with a volume loss of 147 MT. Abaca farmers incurred P118,350 worth of damage and losses with an estimated affected area of 7 hectares.

Source - https://businessmirror.com.ph