Lingayen, Pangasinan—Amid the challenges encountered in 2019, the agriculture industry in the province of Pangasinan remained steadfast due to the support from the national government and the local government units.
While the El Niño phenomenon has brought severe damages to the crops in farmlands of other provinces, the farmers in Pangasinan have prepared for it with the help of the Provincial Agriculture Office and the Department of Agriculture as well as the Department of Agrarian Reform, among other agencies.
The province’s agriculture office provided technical assistance, while the DA and DAR provided farm machinery, such as water pumps.
“Since we already knew of the coming dry-spell as forecasted by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration, we asked the farmers to plant ahead of their schedule, and to choose crops that will not require much water,” provincial agriculturist Dalisay Moya said. Moya said most of the farmlands in the province have already been irrigated.
Weather disturbances in August, such as Tropical Storm “Ineng” and Tropical Depression “Jenny” benefited some 180,000 hectares of farmland in the province with the rains they brought during the dry-spell. However, the onslaught of the southwest monsoon (habagat) caused P63.7-million losses in agriculture in the province.
In response, the DA, Land Bank of the Philippines, and the Agricultural Credit Policy Council launched the Survival and Recovery Assistance loan program that benefited 5,000 farmers.
“This is just an initial assistance as the agriculture sector in the country faces many challenges so we hope this program will help you.
The local government unit and the national government are working together to uplift [the] economic condition of the agri-fisheries sector,” Moya added.