THE numbers are coming in, and the nation is beginning to see the actual damage that super typhoon “Odette” had brought to the Visayas, Mindanao and Palawan in terms of infrastructure, government facilities, private buildings, homes, livelihood, businesses, and agriculture and fisheries.
Government infrastructure, schools, and offices are important, but they are not as close to home for poor farmers and fisherfolk than the loss of their rice, corn, fruits and vegetables, carabaos, cattle, hogs, poultry, goats and ruminants, farm tools, motor boats, fish and fish cages, nets and bancas. The infrastructure are government losses that can easily be rebuilt through budgetary allocations, but the livelihood losses of farmers and fishermen are private suffering that only they will bear.
‘The government will do well
to release on time or even earlier the budget needed by the
DA to ramp up its recovery
projects for the farmers.’
Data from the Department of Agriculture (DA) showed that losses to agriculture caused by Odette have reached P10.7 billion, even as the numbers were still coming in from far-flung municipalities and islands, through the DA regional offices.
The agriculture department said these figures cover 163,760 farmers and fisherfolk with the volume of crop production loss at 244,924 metric tons and 370,142 hectares of agricultural areas in Calabarzon, Mimaropa, Bicol, Western Visayas, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Zamboanga, Northern Mindanao, Davao, Soccsksargen, and Caraga regions.
In terms of commodities, the fisheries sector incurred the most losses with P3 billion, followed by rice with P2.2 billion, coconut with P1.5 billion, high-value crops with P1.5 billion, sugarcane with P1.2 billion, and others with P1.3 billion.
It is somewhat consoling that according to the agriculture department, rice crops planted in some 11,454 hectares of rice had been harvested prior to Odette, with an equivalent production of 34,433 metric tons worth P615.53 million. Also, farmers in the south were able to save 2,452 hectares of corn equivalent to 6,956 metric tons worth P82.55 million from the onslaught of the typhoon.
The government will do well to release on time or even earlier the budget needed by the DA to ramp up its recovery projects for the farmers. We also need extra effort from the Department of Trade and Industry to help them market their produce, and the Bureau of Customs to stem the tide of vegetable and fruit smuggling in the ports.
