Bayombong—Typhoon “Ompong” has left the province with an initial damage to agriculture worth more than P280 million.
Alexander Domingo, provincial agriculturist, said the partial damage report covers rice, corn, banana, fisheries, and vegetables such as tomato, eggplant, cabbage, pepper, beans, and squash including citrus products and a greenhouse.
“The typhoon damaged our agricultural products on their vegetative, reproductive and maturity stages resulting to a loss of 11,793 metric tons,” he said.
Domingo added that the Provincial Farm School in this town was also damaged by Ompong’s strong winds.
Gov. Carlos Padilla also expressed dismay over the typhoon damages especially to crops due to its economic impact among farmers.
He said 80 percent of the province’s population are devoted to farming which serves as a pride of Nueva Vizcaya in terms of agricultural productivity and quality produced crops.
“We expect that damage to agricultural crops will be higher than the damage brought by the typhoon to infrastructure projects,” he said.
Padilla said farmers will soon feel the brunt of typhoon damages due to loses and reduced harvests on rice, corn, vegetables, and fishery products.
“This typhoon damage will truly affect our farmers’ productivity. We will, however, provide interventions to enable our farmers to cope up with their lamentable situation for the moment,” he said.