Around PHP1.5 billion worth of agricultural crops have been devastated due to onslaught of the long dry spell spawned by the El Niño phenomenon in parts of Region 12. Amalia Jayag-Datukan, Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 12 director, said Tuesday such figure covers the actual production and opportunity losses sustained by the region’s farming or agriculture sector as a result of the prolonged intense dry weather. Citing their monitoring, she said the area’s farming sector already posted around PHP208.98 million in production losses, with corn absorbing the most damage with PHP115.102 million, palay with PHP69.704 million and high-value crops with PHP19.669 million. The area’s livestock sector reported losses of around PHP4.517 million, she said. In terms of opportunity losses, Datukan said they recorded a total of PHP1.309 billion for corn and palay crops alone. Such loss is mainly due to the area’s failure to produce around 36,483 metric tons (MT) of corn and 25,595 MT of palay due to the dry spell. “These are projected harvests for corn and palay that were not realized because of the El Niño,” she said. As of the third week of May, Datukan said the dry spell already affected a total of 88,126 hectares of farm lands in the region. It covers 14,400 hectares of palay, 28,207 hectares of corn and 45,519 hectares of high-value crop production areas. North Cotabato reported a damage area of 43,426 hectares, Sarangani with 22,085 hectares, Sultan Kudarat with 15,979 hectares and South Cotabato with 6,636 hectares. All four provinces were earlier placed under the state of calamity due to the impact of the El Niño. DA-12 recorded a total of 9,027 palay farmers and 23,781 corn farmers in the region that were directly affected by the calamity. Sarangani posted the most number of affected farmers with 12,463, followed by North Cotabato with 11,250, Sultan Kudarat with 4,945 and South Cotabato with 4,421. Source -  mb.com.ph