COTABATO CITY, Maguindanao—With the forthcoming long dry season in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries regional secretary Makmod Mending Jr. recently sought from the office of the DA Secretary Proceso Alcala some P50-million fund aid “to help ease the impending adverse effect of El Niño in the region.”
Mending told media the proposed El Niño mitigation fund “will be used for programs to lessen the impact of drought, to provide farmers alternative livelihood, for cloud seeding operations, for medicine to make working animals stronger amid excruciating heat, and for procurement of heat-resistant agricultural products to be distributed to farmers.”
Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Maguindanao, Tawi-Tawi and Basilan are among the provinces identified “to suffer the brunt of El Niño phenomenon starting two months from now,” Mending said.
He stressed that the dry spell, which could last for as long as seven months or until early June 2016, “could eventually cause low production of rice, corn and root crops, and adversely affect the fishpond sector which are all largely dependent on rainfall.”
Mending, however, noted that Maguindanao’s two major irrigation dams—Malitubog-Maridagao and Kabulaan Dams—are being closely monitored even as he directed Field Operations Director Keise Usman to organize a Task Force El Niño to watch over the agriculture sector and recommend appropriate actions.
He recalled “the mild drought that hit Maguindanao early this year recorded loss of 14,000 metric tons of rice production.”
Mending claimed that Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration climate monitoring Prediction chief Anthony Lucero earlier predicted that “this year’s El Niño is seen as worse than the one that hit the country in 1997-98.”