BACOLOD City – Rice farmers in 18 villages of Bago City, Negros Occidental incurred production loss worth a total of P11.28 million due to the monsoon rains that tropical storm “Hanna” enhanced over the week.
The Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) reported on Monday that Bago‘s rice field areas of 9,058 hectares suffered from the damage.
Provincial Agriculturist Japhet Masculino said farms that were affected include those in maturing and reproductive stages and a small portion in seedling and vegetative stages.
Bago City is known as the rice granary of Negros Occidental for producing about 25 percent of the local production output.
In the past months, farmers in Negros Occidental also reported almost P19-million crop production loss due to heavy rains and flooding caused by the southwest monsoon enhanced by tropical storm “Falcon.”
A final report of OPA showed 1,636 rice and corn farmers were affected in 61 barangays of seven localities, with total planted areas of 2,580 hectares.
The rice sector recorded the highest amount of losses at P17.7 million.
The corn sector reported losses worth almost P1.3 million, affecting 52 farmers in 50.70 hectares of plantation in two barangays of San Carlos City.
Under the Negros First Universal Crop Insurance Program, in partnership with the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp., farmers may avail of the P17,000 claim per hectare of damaged farms.
The enrollment premium per cropping season is pegged at P840, and the whole amount is shouldered by the provincial government as a loan. (With a report from PNA/PN)
