The immediate release of funds to the Department of Agriculture (DA) will help ensure that the farm sector recovers this year even as farmers continue to grapple with the ill effects of El Niño, Sen. Francis G. Escudero said over the weekend.
Escudero added that front-loading the DA’s budget will ensure that projects for implementation are not delayed.
“Last year our farm production hardly grew due to El Niño and other calamities that hit the country. But more than the economy, our farmers bear the brunt of these disasters since they rely heavily on farming for their livelihoods,” he said
in a statement.
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the lawmaker said the value of the country’s agricultural production was almost flat in 2015, inching up by a measly 0.11 percent to settle at P788.7 billion, from P797.84 billion in 2014.
Drought in major rice-producing areas and the damage caused by strong typhoons, such as Typhoon Lando (international code name Koppu), in the latter part of 2015 slashed farm output last year, the PSA said.
Escudero said releasing the P40.3 billion allotted to the DA this year and the P2.6 billion in supplemental budget it had requested to mitigate the effects of El Niño would help ensure that the farm sector would perform better this year.
“Section 4 of the General Appropriations Act of 2016 also provides the DA a quick-response fund of P500 million, which shall serve as a standby fund to be used for provision of seeds and other planting materials, fingerlings and fries, livestock, minor fishing paraphernalia and minor repair of small-scale irrigation systems,” he said.
The special fund is provided “in order that the situation and living conditions of people living in communities or areas stricken by calamities, epidemics, crises and catastrophes, which occurred in the last quarter of the immediately preceding year and those occurring during the current year, may be normalized as quickly as possible.”
Escudero also said government preparations for El Niño are “hardly felt” by farmers even though the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) had warned in November 2014 that the country could experience the weather phenomenon.
The Pagasa said the current El Niño episode is among the four strongest events alongside the big episodes in 1972-1973, 1982-1983 and 1997-1998, and may last until June this year.
Citing reports from the Pagasa and the South Australian Research and Development Institute, the lawmaker noted that the 1997-1998 El Niño episode caused severe drought in 70 percent of the country and damaged some 292,000 hectares of rice and corn plantations, costing the agriculture sector at least P3 billion in damages.
The Pagasa had warned that by April, the number of provinces that will be affected by El Niño will rise to 68 from the current 29.