Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala also disclosed that his department may distribute up to 2,000 units of shallow tube wells to farmers affected by the recent typhoons.

“We’re looking at encouraging farmers in affected areas to go into the quick turnaround [QTA] scheme. One of the interventions we will implement is the provision of fertilizer assistance,” said Alcala at the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the National Meat Safety Consciousness Week held in Quezon City Monday.

Documents obtained from the DA earlier showed that the department was eyeing to “campaign” for ratooning in at least 100,000 hectares of rainfed areas. This could contribute around 125,000 metric tons (MT) of rice valued at P2.15 billion.

The deployment of 2,000 shallow tube wells that will service another 6,000 rainfed areas, the documents noted, could contribute 24,000 MT of palay valued at P408 million.

Meanwhile, Alcala said around 10 groups are currently validating figures on losses sustained by the farm sector due to the recent typhoons.

The DA chief said the validation is needed so the inter-agency council on rice and corn could firm up the numbers for rice imports for 2012.

He maintained that the Philippines is still on track in achieving the government’s goal of achieving rice self-sufficiency by 2013.

Documents obtained from the DA showed that unmilled rice damaged by six typhoons which ravaged the Philippines June to October have reached 902,285 metric tons (MT), making it unlikely for the government to reach its paddy rice production target of 17.29 million metric tons (MMT) for 2011.

In milled terms, rice lost to typhoons “Egay,” “Falcon,” “Juaning,” “Mina,” “Pedring,” and “Quiel” reached 586,544 MT. The damages caused by the six typhoons alone have slashed 9.13 percent of the total projected palay output of 9.88 MMT for July to December.

The biggest damage was caused by Typhoons Pedring and Quiel at 760,207 MT palay or an equivalent of 494,135 MT of milled rice. The two typhoons reduced paddy rice output for the second semester by 7.69 percent.

If the projected future damages of 494,008 MT of palay will be included in the computation, total unmilled rice lost could reach 1.396 MMT by the end of 2011.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services (Pag-asa) said earlier that the country will be visited by 3 or 4 more typhoons until the end of the year.

By end of 2011, documents from the DA showed that the Philippines is projected to have a national rice inventory of 2.6 MMT, which is good for 76 days based on an average daily consumption of 31,000 MT.