THE PROVINCIAL Agriculture Office (PAO) in Misamis Oriental is preparing to distribute buffer stocks of rice and corn seeds to help farmers cope with the dry spell that is expected to last two months.
Yvette Guanzon, PAO assistant provincial agriculturist, said they intend to distribute the reserve stocks to the affected farmers mostly in District 2 and, at the same time, monitor the damage wrought by the dry spell on crops as reported by the different municipal and city agriculture office in the province.
"Although naa pay (there is a) chance siguro ang uban pwede pa matabang pero affected na gyud (that probably some farmlands can be saved but some are already gravely affected). Dili na gyud tong normal nga harvest (they can no longer do a normal harvest)," Guanzon said Thursday, March 7.
A partial report from PAO as of March 6 showed that rice fields in Lagonglong town and corn plantations in Balingasag, Alubijid, Laguindingan, Villanueva and El Salvador City are already affected by the dry spell.
A total of 368 hectares of corn and 46 hectares of rice have been damaged while 405 farmers were already affected.
No damage estimates are available for the entire province, but around P176,000 worth of corn production loss was recorded in Balingasag alone.
Guanzon said their office is doing the damage control and all reports will also be forwarded to the Department of Agriculture (DA) regional office for assistance.
She said the provincial government and the DA-Northern Mindanao have buffer stocks of rice and corn seeds to be distributed to affected farmers.
Guanzon also said farmers can borrow the water pumps available at the provincial capitol to irrigate their rice and corn fields.