SANTIAGO CITY—To minimize losses on agricultural investments in the city due to typhoons, the Santiago City agriculture office has recommended crop insurance for local farmers during wet cropping seasons.

“Insuring our crops for a minimal premium could safeguard the interests and guarantee the sure return investments and production cost of even if they [local farmers] get devastated by natural calamities like typhoons, floods or drought,” said Santiago City Agriculture Officer Dominador Fernandez.

For an insurance premium of P500 per hectare of palay, a farmer can get a maximum of P12,000 for totally damaged rice crops.

Crop insurance was designed as a risk-management mechanism to equalize agricultural risks and even out the consequences of natural disasters to marginalized farmers.

Through Presidential Decree  1467, the late President Ferdinand Marcos created the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC) on June 11, 1979.

Initially covering only rice crops, the PCIC implemented the insurance program nationwide starting on May 7, 1981.

Of the city’s 9,352 hectares planted to rice, Fernandez said 8,423 hectares have been severely affected by Typhoon Pedring.

“I am afraid that Typhoon Quiel already finished what Pedring left behind,” said Fernandez.

Typhoons Pedring and Quiel combined damage to rice crops in the city amounted to P213,701,523.

The Department of Agriculture reported on Monday P6.38 billion in losses on rice crops ravaged by Typhoon Pedring.