Emergency rehab helped mitigate crop losses from typhoons – Agri official

Emergency rehabilitation of damaged crops from recent typhoons helped mitigate potential losses in crop production during the first six months of the year, a Department of Agriculture (DA) official said Tuesday. Despite the heavy rains that ravaged much of Luzon and some areas in the Visayas from January to February and from May to June this year, Agriculture Undersecretary Joel Rudinas said palay production was unaffected and even reached an all-time high during first semester. "Ang maganda, nakapag-tanim kaagad iyong mga farmer, kaya eto, come harvest time in June, pumalo 'yung production," Rudinas said in a press briefing Tuesday. In May, the DA reported that up to P360 million worth of harvest was lost in the Bicol region due to typhoon "Bebeng." Just recently, the agency said the farm damage from Torpical Storm Juaning, which battered much of northern Luzon and Bicol, reached P1.063 billion. But the DA on Monday reported that headline harvests of palay and corn boosted the agriculture sector's growth in the first half of 2011 to 5.48 percent, with palay and corn output combined reaching 7.58 metric tons (MT) from January to June. Rudinas said the agency and the farmers' proactive action in rehabilitating the crops also helped when several typhoons battered Luzon in June and July. Monitoring vulnerable areas "'Yung naitanim noong late May and June, naapektuhan [ng mga bagyo]. Nakapagtanim naman uli agad, kaya if you go out in the field, mayroon mga one-month-old seedlings doon sa mga areas na nasalanta," he added. The DA official said that without the rehabilitation measure, "baka mas malaki pa ang damage sacrops." He added that they are closely monitoring vulnerable areas in the Luzon central plains and in the northern parts facing the Pacific. Rudinas said the department is trying to hurdle the challenge of ensuring that the water basins in these regions are not clogged, so as not to block the flow of water keep crops from getting inundated. In its report on crop yield last week, the department said the increase in productivity in the first semester was prompted by good weather and good farm prices which "encouraged the expansion of corn plantings and harvested area." "The expansion is due to the increase in irrigated area primarily through the rehabilitation and repair of irrigation facilities," the DA said. "This was complemented by more rice planted in non-irrigated areas, which received sufficient rainwater from relatively favorable weather during the first six months of 2011," it added. — VS, GMA News