El Niño drying up farms

From north to south, farmers try to survive

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:53:00 02/18/2010

Filed Under: Weather, Agriculture, Water Supply

MANILA, Philippines—Intense heat is drying up farmlands, reservoirs and waterways all over the country, and farmers are scrambling to find ways to cope and survive.

The abnormal signs of El Niño, a weather phenomenon referring to the warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperature in the Pacific Ocean that results in drought in Asia and Australia, and wet winters in the United States, are exacting their toll in the Philippines, according to agriculture officials.

With the lack of rainfall and irrigation water, Filipino farmers are keeping a closer watch over their fields so that whatever available water is used wisely.

Huge clumps of light-brown soil have appeared in the corn fields of Cagayan Valley and Pangasinan, while rice paddies have turned barren in Isabela, Bulacan, Pangasinan, Ilocos Norte, Camarines Sur, Negros, Davao del Sur and other provinces.

The desert-like images have prompted some farmers to stop planting to cut losses.

Isabela, Cagayan and other provinces, as well as in the corn-producing town of Sto. Tomas in Pangasinan and Cauayan City and Ilagan town in Isabela, have been placed under states of calamity to allow local governments to use public funds to help the distressed farmers.

Pangasinan

In Pangasinan, the scene in the agricultural village of Carmen in Rosales town has changed fast in just three months.

Croplands were under several feet of water in October last year. Now, under the scorching sun, the land is parched and cracked.

“If you don’t wear slippers, your feet could get injured as the dried-up soil is so sharp,” said Dhalia Gabor, 23, who is helping her sisters till the land.

The area is covered by an irrigation system, but nothing flows downstream.

When the farmers upstream are done with irrigating their rice lands, water will then be released to the rice fields downstream, according to the “water master,” who is in charge of schedule.

“We are supposed to transplant the palay seedlings already. But there is no water yet. My sisters had to keep the seedlings alive by pumping water from a shallow well, but fuel to run the pump is expensive,” Gabor said.

By the time water reaches the farms, it may be too late to transplant the seedlings.

Gabor’s father, Dominador, 62, decided not to plant in Barangay San Gabriel. He did not want to follow others who were able to do so in December and January, but produced crops that looked unhealthy due to lack of water and expected to harvest only half their yield.

In Pozorrubio town, Board Member Danilo Uy said he had to irrigate his corn fields twice as much than usual.

“Corn needs watering twice or thrice from planting to harvest, but now we have to water them seven or eight times because the land easily dries up. The water evaporates fast,” he said.

Uy said he was lending motor pumps to other farmers to meet their irrigation needs. “But you know, it is really expensive to pump water and there is hardly water coming out of the wells,” he said.

Ilocos Norte

Since rainfall has become scarce beginning late last year, farmers in Pagudpud town in Ilocos Norte are making sure that their rice lands are wet.

During the dry season, more than 500 hectares of rice fields in six villages usually tap the nearby Cabacanan River for irrigation, but now, the river may dry up due to the prolonged drought.

Errol Calivoso, a rice farmer from Barangay Badduang, said crop owners had been spending more time in the fields beginning January to ensure that these were fed sufficiently with water from the river.

“We are drawing more water for our fields. We hope the river does not dry up until we are able to harvest our crops,” he said.

Should the dry spell persist, farmers may resort to planting alternative crops next month, Calivoso said.

Norma Lagmay, provincial agriculturist, said 1,750 hectares of farmlands around Ilocos Norte could no longer be planted with rice.

Instead of the usual cropping period from March to July, farmers now observe it from July to September, she said.

Moreover, they have been told to irrigate their farms only from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., and to avoid going to the fields between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

“The proper hours spent in the fields would lead to proper crop water absorption and protect farmers from the cruel sun,” Lagmay said.

Magat Dam

In Isabela, Narciso Ramones and other rice farmers of Tumauini town have accepted their fate this year.

“We do not have anything for our daily needs. Our palay farms have been drying up, no one would want to loan us money and we do not have collateral because we are very poor,” Ramones said.

Records from the provincial agriculture office showed that at least P1.6 billion worth of rice and corn had been destroyed by the drought.

Administrators of the Magat Dam said they would be forced to shut down the 350-megawatt hydroelectric plant if the reservoir’s water level would drop to 160 meters above sea level (masl) and below.

Michael Hosillos, external affairs manager of SN-Aboitiz Power, said the water level had been continuously decreasing due to the lack of rainfall in the watershed areas.

The drop averages 0.6 meter a day, according to Saturnino Tenedor, dam and reservoir division chief. On Tuesday, the water level read 165 masl, or 28 meters below maximum.

If this reaches 160 masl, Hosillos said the plant would temporarily stop generating electricity.

The Magat facility is just one of the power generators in northern Luzon “so the lack of water here is no cause for alarm in the country,” he said.

“We have coal-fired power plants and other power generators in Luzon to fill up the reserves,” he said.

Tenedor said cloud-seeding operations over the watershed areas did not induce heavy rains.

Pampanga, Nueva Ecija

In Pampanga, Mayor Jerry Pelayo of Candaba town asked farmers to avoid planting rice and resort to growing vegetables, like eggplant, squash and watermelon, which use less water.

In Nueva Ecija, rice farmers in the western part of Guimba town and nearby towns of Cuyapo, Nampicuan and Talugtog will not be using underground irrigation water because they could not afford the high expense for fuel to run the pumps.

In Bulacan, Gloria Carillo, provincial agriculture officer, said palay planted in more than 1,200 hectares of farms in the towns of Bocaue, Balagtas, San Ildefonso and Calumpit have been destroyed due to shortage of irrigation water.

Rice fields in Bulakan, Pulilan, Guiguinto and Plaridel towns have also been drying up.

The Department of Agriculture, Carillo said, would distribute seeds of alternative crops to the farmers to help them recover their losses.

Camarines Sur

In Camarines Sur, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and the municipal government of Buhi are wrangling over the priority use of water resources of Lake Buhi as 1,061 rice farms are drying up for lack of irrigation water.

The lake, home of sinarapan (Mistichthys luzonensis), the smallest commercial fish in the world, has an area of 18 square kilometers and an average depth of 8 meters.

William Ragodon, NIA regional director, said he would raise the issue to the National Water Resources Board and to the court as a last resort to resolve the problem on the utilization of water from Lake Buhi.

The NIA wants the municipality to further lower the sluice in the lake’s control structure to 82 meters so that water supply can be increased for irrigation in Iriga City and Bula town. But Buhi Mayor Rey Lacoste maintains that this could affect tilapia production in fish cages.

Western Visayas

The dry spell had already destroyed 13,000 hectares of rice lands in Western Visayas and could affect 42,000 has more, according to Larry Nacionales, agriculture regional director.

Nacionales said damage to agriculture could reach some P500 million.

Cloud seeding will be done in Negros Occidental because wide tracts of its sugarcane fields have been affected, he said, but not over mango and watermelon plantations, and other croplands which could be damaged by the operation.

The agriculture department’s regional office has requested P190 million to rehabilitate irrigation systems and develop other water sources.

It has also encouraged farmers to plant other crops and raise livestock as alternative sources of income. Reports from Yolanda Sotelo, Cristina Arzadon, Estanislao Caldez and Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon; Anselmo Roque, Charlene Cayabyab and Carmela Reyes, Inquirer Central Luzon; Juan Escandor Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon; and Nestor Burgos Jr., Inquirer Visayas