PHILIPPINE dry lands…?

“That does not make sense,” was my initial reaction to Dr. William D. Dar’s talk on the topic some five years ago while he was here in Baguio to promote research on pigeon pea and other legumes with food and feed potentials for marginal farmers. Dr. Dar is now serving a term as director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Sem-Arid Tropics (Icrisat).

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Later, in the same week of that visit, we went to the Pangasinan State University in Sta. Maria, Pangasinan where he met with the Ilocos Region Regional Development Council (RDC) headed by Atty. Enrie Mendoza. In that meeting, he told the Ilocos RDC leaders to push for the establishment of the Philippines Dry Lands Institute. I believe the group followed through with the recommendation up to the filing of a bill in Congress for this purpose.

Again, his talk on the evolution of Philippine drylands was way above me. At that time, I could not imagine a dryland scenario for the Philippines, the country being within the world’s typhoon belt and wettest regions. I really wondered and worried a bit for my good mentor on rural development.

This past week, Dr. Dar got me back thinking about my doubts on the eventuality of Philippine drylands at this time when the country just recently experienced the “wet” part of climate change through the big floods brought by three typhoons.

In his latest email message, he guided my thoughts to situate how the Philippines is going to experience the opposite of this extreme weather condition – the dry part that comes after. “Try to picture drought, land degradation and desertification (DLDD) situations? Try to see how this is happening? Which parts of the country are affected?

Try to make projections when each situation is happening and where?”

That is tough for a green horn. That is me of course. But I need to get back to him somehow with an output. So I cracked my head on the assignment following through guide questions and assimilating his responses to them. It produced a document that opened the door for me in understanding his audacity in asking his fellow Ilocanos to spearhead the push for a Philippine dryland institute then.

According to Dr. Dar, “the impacts of climate change, whether wet or dry, do not necessarily occur in isolation. Temperature increases and droughts can occur in the same year. More rains do not always translate into an ideal situation for agriculture. Take the case of India. In terms of rainfall, this season was a drought year in the last four weeks with a 50 percent deficit in rains. Then followed excess rains that caused floods. Though rainfall was more than normal, crops were severely affected due to drought and the following damage.”

Temperature predictions indicate increases in the range of 2-3°C and higher - day and night temperatures that could adversely affect agriculture. In the Philippines, Dr. Dar said that “the places most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are eastern Mindanao, part of Samar, Quezon, western Luzon, Metro Manila and other highly urbanized areas. Though it is difficult to precisely predict the occurrence of drought, it is definitely possible to build resilience in the system and enforce adaptation and mitigation strategies to cope with it.”

In my understanding, the drylands scenario for the Philippines is now being hastened by climate change conditions. It may take all our lifetime and more for a desert to become visible but it may occur sooner with the impact or consequences of drought, desertification and land degradation.

Drought, land degradation and desertification are a sequence of events and processes that occur at different points in time, which if unhampered, lead to deserts and impact livelihoods, agricultural production and sustainability said Dar. Drought is a water deficit situation for plant growth resulting from lower inputs via rain and increased losses due to evapotranspiration. It is the cause of land degradation, which in broader terms decreases the production capacity of land, lowers soil and land quality. Thus their decreasing ability to produce food, fodder, and fuel, reduces the availability and quality of water, and leads to loss of vegetation and biodiversity.

Unhampered land degradation without interventions sets in the process of desertification. This is when the land’s capacity declines drastically with time and reaches a stage where it cannot be reversed.

Drought and land degradation have a cause and effect relationship. (To be continued…)