ZAMBOANGA CITY, Zamboanga Sibugay—The prolonged drought in the rural communities of this highly urbanized city has destroyed close to P20 million worth of agricultural and fishery crops since late 2015, an agricultural official said.
City agriculture office chief Diosdado Palacat said some 1,000 hectares of rice, corn, assorted vegetables, and fishponds “have withered and dried up from November 2015 to the middle of February 2016 with no chance of recovery in the farmlands of Curuan, Vitali, Mercedes, San Ramon, Taluksangay, Sangali, Labuan, Culainan, Malaguatay, Labuan, Sacol and several mountain sitios.
The long dry spell has adversely affected the food supply of some 900 farming families, Palacat said, adding that the El Niño has hit over 900 farming families who now resort to eating root crops.
Palacat noted that over 780 hectares of newly planted rice fields have dried up. The cracked soil has also destroyed some 200 corn fields, as well as areas on which camote, cassava, papaya, banana, peanut, papaya, ginger, eggplant, tomato and squash are planted.
The city agriculture office said it “continues to monitor the dry spell even as it provides necessary assistance and support to as many affected farmers as possible, including the planting of alternative crops that withstand the effect of El Niño.
Meanwhile, cloud seeding operations undertaken by the Pagasa-DoST started on Feb. 16.
Japanese experts who arrived here recently said they expect the local drought to last until the end of summer 2016.