About P605 million worth of agricultural crops in two provinces of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao were destroyed by the El Niño that has beset the region since early February, an agricultural official said Friday.
This developed as the state weather bureau said the Angat Dam in Bulacan, which supplies most of the water for Metro Manila, may reach its critical level by May.
Mohammad Yacob, head of the BARMM Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform, said the damage could go even higher as reports from three other provinces of the region—Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi—have yet to come.
Citing the March 26 report of BARMM Task Force El Niño, Yacob said the data was only from the provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, where 10,818 hectares of rice and 11,039 hectares of corn have been affected.
“Of the total 21,857 hectares affected, 11,050 hectares were considered totally damaged [with] no chance of recovery,” he said.
A total of 18,423 farmers have been affected in the two provinces, with 11,087 in Lanao del Sur and 7,336 in Maguindanao.
Yacob said ahead of the weak El Niño, the ministry started implementing mitigating measures to cushion the impact of the dry season that included planting of heat-resistant variety of agricultural crops, use of open source pump irrigation system and shallow tube wells.
“Also included in the mitigating measures was the massive vaccination of livestock across the two provinces,” he added.
Meanwhile, Richard Orendain, hydrologist at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said as of Friday at 6 a.m. Angat Dam’s water level had not gone down and was at 193.96 meters against its normal rule curve of 190.86 meters.
However, he noted the dam may reach 182 meters by the end of April and 177.29 by May, below its low water level of 180 meters.
“We have a normal distribution from Angat Dam for power, domestic use, and irrigation,” he told the Manila Standard.
“It is not that threatening,” he said, adding “the dam is still far from its critical level.”
Orendain said that even if Angat’s water elevation would dip to its critical low at 180 meters or below, “that does not mean there will be no water for us.”
“Water for irrigation purposes has been cut,” he said, noting he was confident because the National Water Resources Board has done so.
He said rain would still fall on Angat, albeit at 20 percent to 60 percent lower because of the El Niño.
“Water level at Angat Dam was much lower during the dry season in 2018 considering there was no El Niño then,” he said.
Senator Juan Edgardo Angara, meanwhile, said the government needs to dispatch immediate help to farmers who are now bearing the brunt of drought caused by El Niño.
“The government must ensure that intervention programs reach small-scale farmers and farmworkers to help them cope with and mitigate the extreme impacts of El Niño,” Angara said.
The lawmaker said many farmers, especially those in food-growing areas, are in urgent need of assistance whether in the form of cash, food aid or alternative livelihoods.
“Our farmers badly need food and alternative sources of income to compensate for the huge losses they incurred due to this ongoing drought,” Angara said.
Angara said the administration should learn an important lesson from the 2016 El Niño episode where a massive three-day protest rally in Kidapawan City ended in a bloody dispersal of drought-affected farmers seeking for urgent food aid and subsidies from the government.
The Kidapawan crisis left three farmers dead and over a hundred others injured.
“How can we forget the Kidapawan crisis where the government came too late, too little? It reminds us how important it is for the much-needed government aid to reach its intended recipients in a timely manner,” Angara said.
Angara said the government can help by “flooding areas hit by drought with assistance.”
Several provinces in the country have been placed under a state of calamity due to the impact of El Niño, the latest of which is Cebu, which sustained massive agricultural damage.
Latest data from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council showed that agricultural damage caused by El Niño has already reached P2.6 billion.
According to the country’s state weather bureau, El Niño conditions are expected to last until the end of May or June this year and could affect 42 provinces. With PNA
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