AGRICULTURE SECRETARY Emmanuel F. Piñol said that the department is in talks with the irrigation agency to facilitate adjustments to the planting calendar in order to minimize typhoon damage to farms in northern Luzon in September and October.
Mr. Piñol told reporters on Monday: “Our projection is by 2019, we will be able to improve (the harvest). In principle, we are in discussions with NIA (National Irrigation Administration) to adjust the planting calendar to account for typhoons hitting Northern Luzon in September and October”
“We might be forced to adjust the planting calendar to make sure the harvest season ends early September, to avoid the worst of the typhoons, which are now arriving earlier in the year due to climate change.” He said in typical years the most damaging storms arrive in October and November.
The Department of Agriculture estimates crop damage of P26.7 billion in September from farms in Regions 1 to 4A, and the Cordillera Administrative Region, due to typhoon Ompong (international name: Mangkhut).
Mr. Piñol said that because of it, the Philippines might fail to meet the targeted palay production of 19.8 million metric tons (MT) for this year.
“We are not seeing a very good picture given the Ompong damage, although it would still be better than the 2017 harvest,” Mr. Piñol said. The government recorded 19.28 million MT of palay production last year.
In an interview with BusinessWorld, science research specialist 2 Rolando O. Abad of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said that a change in cultivation practices would help the agriculture sector adjust to climate change and also reduce its impact on climate change due to greenhouse gases emitted by the sector.
“Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are high — about 30% of the total. For rice, that promotes the build up of water. When it rains, the biomass of rice under water emits methane,” Mr. Abad said.
Mr. Abad said improved irrigation systems would help decrease the contribution of agriculture to climate change, particularly a system that uses less water.
He said improved irrigation using less water can bring about ”alternate wetting and drying instead of continuous soaking of rice fields.”
Mr. Abad also said that farmers may resort to varieties of rice that require less water during the dry season or flood-resistant varieties during the wet season. — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio
