Agri chief not too worried about El Niño

Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Agriculture is not too concerned about the likelihood of an El Niño phenomenon 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 arising from an El Niño phenomenon, or the abnormal warming of waters in the Pacific, 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 told reporters.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) indicated 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 reports, Australia’s weather bureau sees clear signs El Niño is developing in the Pacific, while its Japanese counterpart believes the phenomenon is already underway, although it is believed to be a mild case.

The country suffered the worst El Niño from 1997-1998, when more than P8-billion worth of crops were destroyed. In 1982-1983, it left P700-million worth of damages 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 also warned 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. Although in other countries, like the US and Australia, there is drought, here we have a bumper harvest of corn. The highest ever was this year,” he said.

Alcala also said the decision to do early cropping among rice farmers 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 replant 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 has that will participate,” Alcala said.

“If we can just get four metric tons per hectare, we will have 400,000-MT additional palay (unhusked rice) production for this year.  That’s above our own projections,” he added. DJ Yap