‘El Niño to cut farm output’

BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA

ILOILO – The province’s rice production for 2015 could decline if the El Niño phenomenon will come October this year as forecasted, according to Provincial Agriculture Office (PAO) chief, Dr. Ildefonso Toledo.

El Niño is the prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean’s surface temperatures. In the Philippines, this condition usually brings a long, dry spell. Farmlands dry up, thus farmers could not plant rice and other crops or if they do, the production is usually low.

Ildefonso urged farmers to prepare, such as planting alternative crops like vegetables and other root crops that could endure drought.

He also confirmed there has been a delay in the planting of rice for the second quarter cropping because of the delayed rains.

As of this month, only about 15 percent of the total 1,037 hectares farmland in the province was planted, he revealed.

But Ildefonso said farmers are catching up. For the first quarter cropping harvested this April, production is 17 percent above the target, Ildefonso said.

In a related development, the National Food Authority (NFA) Iloilo provincial office is now selling well-milled rice aside from the regular-milled rice it is distributing in the market.

Provincial Manager Marianito Bejemino said the agency has started the distribution of the well-milled rice two weeks ago, and sold at P32 per kilogram.

Bejemino said this is done to further stabilize the price of well-milled rice in the market until the harvest season on September.

The price of rice normally increases on lean months which are from June to August every year, he explained.

Bejemino added that the food agency introduced middle-priced well-milled rice to provide the consuming public an option to buy affordable but of higher quality rice compared to commercial rice varieties that are currently sold in the market at a much higher price.

NFA regular-milled rice remains at P27 per kilogram.

The agency’s provincial monitoring team regularly checks the markets to ensure the availability of NFA rice to the public, said Bejemino./PN