SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – The Department of Agriculture (DA) 6 (Western Visayas) is prepared with a reserve of certified rice seeds and fertilizers to assist farmers in Antique facing the challenges posed by the anticipated El Niño phenomenon in the first quarter of 2024.
Sonie Guanco, the head of the Agriculture Program Coordinating Office in Antique, revealed that an initial stock of 1,200 bags of certified rice seeds and 400 bags of Urea fertilizer is stored at the warehouse of the Office of the Provincial Agriculture (OPA) in Barangay Badiang, San Jose de Buenavista, ready for distribution and planting in the upcoming cropping season.
“We had turned over the buffer stock to the OPA so it could be easily distributed through the Municipal Agriculture Officers (MAOs) to the farmers,” he stated in a Thursday interview.
Qualified farmers with one-hectare farmland are entitled to receive a bag of free seeds and another bag of fertilizer.
In addition to the DA's intervention, Guanco highlighted that local government units have devised El Niño mitigation plans and are providing support to farmers.
"While we await damage reports from the MAOs, some farmers have already reported a shortage of water on their farmlands as a result of the El Niño phenomenon," he mentioned.
Guanco also suggested that during El Niño, farmers could consider planting drought-tolerant crops like camote and vegetables, particularly in rain-fed areas. (PNA)
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