The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Rose de la Cruz
With farmers having lost an estimated P15.30 billion from El Nino and the coming La Nina (which brings heavy rains and subsequent floods that would soak farms and destroy more crops), it is necessary to extend the life of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) if only to sustain the livelihood of rice farmers and help them recover from calamities.
Yearly, an estimated P10 billion of tariff collection from imported rice under the RCEF program is given to the DA to provide for inbred seeds, fertilizers, mechanization, credit, and extension services and training and technological support.
The RCEF also allots a substantial amount to subsidize farmers tilling less than 2 hectares and credit support to diversify to other crops during calamities.
The Department of Agriculture recently reported the losses from El Nino alone of P15.30 billion from 15 regions or 784,344 metric tons (MT) of rice.
Palay and corn suffered the brunt of the weather phenomenon as it accounted for most of the damage at 330,717 MT and 327,310 MT, respectively, reported Business Mirror.
El Niño also damaged 11,681 MT of high-value crops of 112,681 MT, 2,320 MT of cassava and 11,317 MT of aquaculture produce.
The DA said production losses were equivalent to P5.93 billion for rice, P5.94 for corn, P3.27 billion for high-value crops, P55.63 million for cassava, P9.80 million for coconut, and P52.44 million for fisheries.
For livestock and poultry, the DA said 25,547 chickens, cattle, carabao, ducks, goats, horses, sheep, and swine were affected by the dry spell, all valued at P37.97 million.
Losses to rice of 330,717 MT are equivalent to 3.59 percent of the target production of 9.22 million metric tons (MMT), both for dry cropping season this 2024. As for corn, the production loss of 327,310 MT is 7.28 percent of the target production of 4.49 MMT in the same cropping season.
The DA said it provided P14.54 billion to affected farmers and fishers. Among the provisions given were P4.72 billion worth of production support and financial assistance, P99.68 million worth of Survival and Recovery Aid Loan from the Agricultural Credit Policy Council, and P452.56 million from the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. that indemnified 56,112 farmers in the Cordillera Administrative Region and Regions 1 to 12.
The weather bureau declared last June the end of El Niño phenomenon in the country in June. But the La NIna is expected to hit the country between August and October.
Last month, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said extreme weather events threaten the country’s farm output targets.
“This year’s targets [of expanding the agriculture and fisheries production between one and two percent) would not be easy,” Laurel said during the post- SONA of the President in Pasay City. “We started with El Nino last January […] and now we will have to deal with La Nina.”
However, Tiu Laurel said the additional coverage of irrigated farmland mentioned in President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Sona would “definitely” increase production.