The Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office 2 (DA-RFO2) reported that damage to agriculture caused by El Niño from February 7 to March 7 has reached P560.9 million.

"This is despite putting together efforts to combat the dry spell and drawing up interventions to cushion its impact," said Rose Mary Aquino, DA-RFO2 officer-in-charge executive director.

Aquino said the agency's interventions include the establishment of open-source pumps and awarding of mobile solar-powered irrigation to farmers cooperatives and associations (FCAs) and cloud seeding sorties.

In his report to the agency's Management Committee on April 1, 2024, engineer Monico Castro Jr., DA-RFO2 field operations division chief, said more than 17,949 hectares have been affected with an estimated yield loss of 35,905.22 metric tons (MT) of rice, corn, and high-value crops in Quirino, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Cagayan.

"In our log, out of the total affected crop area, 16,174.55 hectares were partially damaged, while 1,774.48 hectares were damaged," Castro said.

He added that from this, 3,657.95 MT are rice production target losses from 1,721,586.87 MT for the dry season 2023-2024 target, 32,166.95 MT corn losses from 1,097,145.49 MT dry season target and 80.33 MT high-value crops losses from 201,237.98 MT from January to June 2024 target.

Ferdinand Cortez of the DA-RFO2 Regional Agriculture and Fisheries Information Section said that as early as February this year, "cloud seeding has been drawn out as a strategy to save the corn areas inasmuch as Cagayan Valley is the top producer and top contributor to the national performance yield."

Meanwhile, engineer Daisy Saldo, DA-RFO2 assistant chief of the Regional Agriculture Engineering Division, said sorties were made to seed contiguous clouds.

"This is to provide relief to corn plants, especially those in the partially damaged or having a chance of recovery areas," said Saldo, adding that their targets include Southern Cagayan, Northern Isabela and Nagtipunan, Quirino where corn farmers planted late this year.

She noted that in their cloud seeding sorties, rain was observed in Enrile town in Cagayan and San Pablo town in Isabela on February 25; Santo Tomas in Isabela, and Enrile in Cagayan on February 26; Tumauini and Cabagan in Isabela on February 28; Tuguegarao City, Iguig and Peñablanca on March 2; and Barangay Ponggo and San Dionisio in Quirino on March 13; and Barangay Sangbay in Nagtipunan on March 21.

Cortez said the Department of Science and Technology in Region 2 (Cagayan Valley) and Pagasa experts will present El Niño updates during municipal agriculturist meetings.

Source - https://www.manilatimes.net