COTABATO CITY—Farmers in Maguindanao severely affected by the dry spell have received seedlings of various vegetables as alternative crops, courtesy of the Maguindanao provincial government, officials and farmers said on Monday.
“Sibuyas, kamatis and pechay, [Onions, tomatoes and pechay] are our options when our corn and rice crops have been damaged,” Alistair Mamaluba, a farmer in Pagalungan, Maguindanao, told reporters on Monday.
“We have no option, we have nowhere to turn to but the government, thanks to the Department of Agriculture [DA] support,” he said, showing the newly grown onions and tomatoes in his rice fields that turned into dry lands.
More than 400 families have received agriculture assistance from the government as the drought intensified, giving farmers difficulty to recover.
Mamaluba’s rice fields are situated beside the vast Maguindanao marshland but drought turned the marshy area into dry lands a kilometer away from his rice fields.
The Maguindanao provincial agriculture office has started distributing heat-resistant vegetable varieties as alternative crops to farmers whose rice and corn fields have been devastated by the dry spell.
Alexander Alonto, regional secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DAF-ARMM), said his office had foreseen the dry spell and it had dispersed alternative vegetables to cushion the impact of drought.
Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu has recommended the declaration of state of calamity in Maguindanao, which the provincial council readily approved.
The drought has also taken its toll on humans as a farmer, devastated by failures in two croppings last November and in January, ended his life in Kiga, South Upi, Maguidanao. Two children also died due to heat-related diseases.
Emergency assistance had been extended to affected farmers in South Cotabato.
In North Cotabato the provincial government has started cloud-seeding operations to induce rain with the assistance of the agriculture department.
“We have enough salt and funds for the cloud-seeding operation,” North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Mendoza said. Five aerial sorties had been carried out in the province and it had produced moderate rain, enough to water dried-up corn and rice fields.