TACLOBAN CITY – Typhoon Glenda left trail of destruction to crops in Eastern Visayas that will cost farmers some P327.56 million in losses.
Department of Agriculture(DA) Regional Executive Director for Eastern Visayas Bernadette San Juan said that for rice alone, 17,093 hectares were destroyed, resulting to a 19,175 metric tons reduction in rice output. The total values of losses for rice reached P325.98 million. “The impact of the recent typhoon is only minimal. The project loss accounts 1.87% of the target production for the year, but we are preparing interventions to assist 15,028 affected farmers,” San Juan told Leyte Samar Daily Express.
The DA will be giving out one bag of seeds per hectare and a bag of fertilizer for totally destroyed rice farms and half bag of seeds for partially damaged farms. “Some of the planted areas can still recover. Once the water drains in less than 2 weeks, it will survive,” San Juan added. Biliran, the province with the highest self-sufficiency is the most badly hit area, suffering a projected production loss of 13.50%. For corn, the DA reported a P1.58 million damages due to lost harvest of 124 metric tons planted in 421 hectares. Of the 17,093 hectares of affected rice farms, 5,834 hectares were in Samar; 5,780 in Biliran;3,610 in Northern Samar; 927 hectares in Leyte and 922 hectares in Eastern Samar.
For the present cropping season, the region has 159,150 hectares of planted area. The region expects a million metric tons rice yield for 2014, about half million were harvested as of June, according to San Juan. (SARWELL Q.MENIANO)
