ILOILO City – Farmers in Miagao, Iloilo sought assistance from the Department of Agriculture (DA) Western Visayas following the crop diseases problem in the area which led to major damage to onions.
DA’s Regional Crop Pest Management Center (RCPMC) team recently validated around 70.65 hectares onion farms said to have been infested after the onset of Typhoon Auring recently.
According to Miagao Bulb Onion coordinator April Joy Depamaylo, their farmers are supposed to have started harvesting last February but suffered from crop losses due to infestation.
RCPMC’s Technical Staff, Ian Mark Ciocon and Michael Magan have collected samples of diseased onions in the affected barangays of Bagumbayan, Dawog, and Cubay.
Field symptoms as well as laboratory diagnosis results indicated that onions were infected by “onion anthracnose and twister disease complex” caused by fungi Colletotrichum gloesporioides and Gibberella moniliformis.
“The documentation during the field validation and the laboratory diagnosis results will help affected farmers in processing their claims for insurance at the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC),” said Ciocon.
Depamaylo said they are working closely with the DA and PCIC to immediately provide proper interventions to 378 onion farmers. If indemnity claims are granted to them, farmers will have their capital to replant onions.
The P20 million DA-funded cold storage facility put up in Miagao motivated more farmers to continue advancing their onion farming. “Testing of facilities are now on-going with the supervision of the Regional Agricultural Engineering Division, while the building maintenance, electricity, and fencing are being taken cared of by the LGU- Miag-ao,” Depamaylo said.
The cold storage facility will provide post-harvest support to farmers. It can increase the shelf lives of the crop thus giving farmers options for favorable market value. Farmers can produce more onion to secure that sufficient volume will be available for the entire region.
Miag-ao is the largest onion-producing municipality in Western Visayas.(MCMBuala/DA-RAFIS6)
