Drought destroys P8.4b worth of crops

THE damage wrought by El Niño to crops amounted to P8.4 billion, Agriculture Secretary Bernie Fondevilla said Friday. Verified reports showed standing corn crops sustained most of the damage, he told reporters at the sidelines of the Agriculture Guarantee Fund Pool awarding rites at the Bureau of Soils and Water Management. The government could not yet say if the damage would go beyond P11 billion as reported earlier. “We'll see. Should the episode worsen, we can estimate the extent of the damage and determine if there will be a need to import additional rice,” he said. The government is monitoring 14 provinces greatly affected by the drought, including Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino in Northern Luzon, Bulacan and Nueva Ecija in Central Luzon, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque and Romblon in the Mimoropa area or Region IV-B, Masbate in Bicol, and Antique, Guimaras and Negros Occidental in Western Visayas. Still, the department has no numbers yet for the total size of farmlands affected by the drought as well as the volume of crops that were destroyed. Over 200,000 metric tons (MT) of paddy rice was destroyed, Fondevilla estimated. The department’s Central Action Center earlier placed the damage to crops at P11.2 billion, with damaged paddy rice nearing 300,000 MT. Despite the center’s numbers for rice crops, Fondevilla said the department is sticking to its projection that paddy rice output in the first half would total 7.2 million metric tons. Paddy rice production for the second quarter will reach 3.463 million MT or 0.8 percent higher than the 3.435 MMT produced in April to June 2009. In crop survey for January, the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics said that paddy rice output in the second quarter would grow with the 1.11-percent expansion of harvested areas. It projected a harvest in 868,000 hectares of irrigated and rain-fed farms in the country. “With the demand (for palay) expected at 3.03 MMT in the second quarter, the 3.463 MMT projection is more than enough to cover our national requirement for the period,” Agriculture Secretary Salvador Salacup said. This year the Philippines will import up to 2.4 MMT of milled rice, mostly from Vietnam, to fill a possible gap in production, cover the crops damaged by typhoons late last year and the current crops felled by the drought.