ILOILO City – The Department of Agriculture (DA) in Western Visayas is readying its regional action plan to mitigate the impact of the El Niño phenomenon to the region’s agriculture sector.
Engr. Jose Albert Barrogo, DA-6 regional director, said though the region has an existing action plan based on previous El Niño occurrences, they have to review and enhance it.
“In general, the Department of Agriculture is preparing for the worst so ready naman ang department sa paghatag sang assistance and intervention sa mga affected areas naton,” he said.
Barrogo noted they are mainly focusing their plan on non-vulnerable and vulnerable areas.
Non-vulnerable areas are those with sufficient water supply, thus, the focus is to provide intervention which can boost the farmers’ production.
Meantime, for those vulnerable areas where water is scarce, farmers are advised to plant fast crops resilient to dry season instead of going into rice production.
But in urban set-up, the regional office encourages urban gardening.
These and among others are the directions of the DA-6 to combat the effects of El Niño.
To carry out these interventions, Barrogo said DA-6, along with other line agencies, will reactivate and reconstitute the regional taskforce on El Niño by next week.
The region is also set to submit to the national office its El Niño Regional Action Plan also next week.
Initially, Barrogo narrated among the actions to be taken by the regional office relative to preparations against El Niño include continuous monitoring and coordination with Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) regarding their climate forecast; enhance El Niño mitigation and action plan; conduct of regional trainings; and assessment and massive information dissemination, and education and communication drive.
Also part of the plan is prepositioning of seed reserves; planting materials; drug, biologics and pesticides; and inventory and prepositions of pumping engines.
Barrogo noted that for vulnerable areas, one of the actions considered is the conduct of cloud seeding which is being handled by the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM). BSWM is the agency that finalizes and decides which areas to conduct cloudseeding.
DA has other programs which can help mitigate the impact of El Niño such as provision of fuel subsidy, short gestating drought tolerance seed varieties, and planting materials.
Western Visayas has planting intentions to a total of 436,000 hectares, both for wet and dry seasons.
Of the figure, 154,000 hectares or 35 percent are vulnerable areas while 283,000 hectares or 65 percent are non-vulnerable areas.
But during dry season, the region’s planting intention is 223,000 hectares, of which 125,000 hectares are vulnerable areas while 98,000 hectares are non-vulnerable areas.
For rice alone, of the 213,000 hectares where DA has previous intervention, 27,000 hectares are vulnerable areas while some 125,000 hectares are non-vulnerable areas.
“We expect the El Niño impact on production. Isa sa mga pinakadaku nga challenge that’s why ang focus namon is to identify gid sang vulnerable areas and non-vulnerable kay para at least ma-ready naton ang aton mga interventions. Since sa non-vulnerable may water supply, so tinguhaan naton nga magtaas ang production para ma-cope niya diri ang losses sa vulnerable areas,” Barrogo added./PN
