THE government will provide additional support for provinces that are less likely to be hit by El Niño to boost agricultural productivity in the Philippines during the dry spell, an official from the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said.
While some provinces in Eastern Visayas and Mindanao are expected to receive the additional aid, the government has yet to earmark a definite amount, said Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon.
“We expect severe El Niño to happen in January, February. We’re preparing so that the worst scenario will not happen,” she said in a press conference in Malacañang on Tuesday, Nov. 7.
“El Niño will happen pero may pagkain tayo. ‘Yun ang gusto naming mangyari,” she said.
Government aid for farmers has always been there “but this time we want to target these provinces that will experience normal rainfall,” the NEDA undersecretary added. “Ang production support na kailangan dito would be high-yielding na varieties, fertilizers, irrigation.”
The government has yet to determine how much would be needed to fund these efforts, but newly-installed Agriculture secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Junior “promised that he would work on it right away.”
As for other parts of the country, the government is pushing to have agricultural farms consolidated to develop them into commercial scale, Edillon said.
“That is the general direction that we will be going to – clustering of farms, farm consolidation para maging malalaki ‘yung farm sizes,” she said.
Aside from assistance to farmers, the government is also “laying the ground work for the more robust solutions,” including more investments in the agricultural sector. (ABS-CBN News)
