Agri dep’t not worried about ‘El Niño’ for now
MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Agriculture is not too concerned about the high likelihood of El Niño developing in the last quarter, saying the dry spell may even benefit certain crops, especially mangoes.
“I will not say it will be a great advantage but that will depend on the duration of the dry spell. [Our initial assessment] is there are crops that will benefit,” Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala told a press briefing on Thursday.
He said a dry spell brough on by the El Niño phenomenon, or the warming of Pacific waters, would be favorable to mango farmers.
“We have not been able to take advantage of our mangoes for the past two years because the rainy season went on much longer,” Alcala said.
The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said there is a strong possibility of El Niño developing toward the later months of 2012. In the Philippines, El Niño is usually preceded by wet conditions, followed by a dry spell.
According to news reports, Australia’s weather bureau sees clear signs El Niño is developing in the Pacific, while its Japanese counterpart believes the phenomenon is already under way, although it is believed to be a mild case.
The country suffered its worst El Niño period in 1997-1998, when more than P8 billion worth of crops was destroyed. In 1982-1983, it left P700 million worth of damage to rice and corn, and in 1992-1993, agricultural losses reached more than P4 billion.
In 2009, a relatively weak El Niño hit the country, but as it was developing, it interacted with the monsoon season, which was marked by the onslaught of strong and destructive typhoons, from Ondoy in September to typhoons Pepeng and Santi in October.
Alcala warned, however, that a dry spell would be a disadvantage to corn farmers.
“But let me tell you that this year will be a record-breaker year for corn production… here we have a bumper harvest of corn. The highest ever was this year,” he said.
Alcala said rice farmers’ decision to do early cropping proved wise. “The good thing about our early cropping, is there were (farmers covering) 180,000 hectares (of land) who participated, and right now they are harvesting,” he said.
He encouraged the farmers to plant a third crop by mid-September.
“If they will replant their crops on or before Sept. 15, we will give them free seeds and we will give them free insurance. This is a good incentive and we are anticipating that we will have not less than 100,000 hectares that will participate,” Alcala said.
“If we can just get four metric tons per hectare, so we will have 400,000 MT additional palay (unhusked rice) production for this year. That’s above our own projections,” he added.
