Farms in 3 Pangasinan towns lose water supply

DAGUPAN CITY — Farmers in three Pangasinan towns are struggling to save their rice plants after the Agno River irrigation system ran out of water following a four-day shutdown of San Roque Power Corp. (SRPC) recently.

Ernesto Pamoceno, president of the Pangasinan Federation of Irrigators’ Associations, said farmers in the towns of Mapandan, Sta. Barbara and Malasiqui are now using water pumps to prevent their rice fields from drying up.

He said water from the San Roque Dam for these towns was still not enough.

SRPC, which uses dam water for its power generation, had an emergency maintenance shutdown from Feb. 15 to 18, according to Cipriano Yabut, chief of the Agno, Sinocalan and San Fabian river irrigation systems of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).

Dry

As a result, irrigation canals dried up, depriving farmers of the required water for some 12,000 hectares of rice farms, he said.

SRPC discharges water to a reregulating pond at the bottom of the dam’s spillway gates every time it generates power. The NIA then regulates water releases from the pond to its irrigation canals.

Yabut said when the NIA released water on Feb. 18, every farm along its 40-kilometer main canal needed it.

“It should have been easy,” he said.

“But some farmers in other towns closed the irrigation canals’ check gates, stopping the flow of water to tail end areas,” Yabut said.

Fuel cost

Pamoceno said at least 2,000 ha of rice fields in the three towns still lack irrigation water. He said the use of water pumps meant additional expenses for farmers, especially with the rising cost of fuel.

What saddened farmers more, Pamoceno said, was the low buying price of palay, now pegged at P18.50 per kilogram.

He appealed to farmers to keep the irrigation canals’ check gates open for other farm areas to benefit from the free irrigation. —GABRIEL CARDINOZA