'Ondoy', 'Pepeng' hit areas producing 56% of RP's rice
MANILA - Back-to-back typhoons that hit the Philippines' Luzon island put in peril key rice producing areas in the country.
"Ondoy" and "Pepeng" (international codenames Ketsana and Parma, respectively) have been batter
ing the country for the past 2 weeks, inundating farms, fish pens, and destroying key infrastructure like bridges and roads.
Based on the annual rice production report of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, the areas hit by "Ondoy" and "Pepeng" accounted for 56.62% of the country's total rice production in 2008.
Rice, a staple for Filipinos, is a political commodity. The lack of supply and spikes in price of rice in the country have affected the political careers of previous leaders, including the President Diosdado Macapagal, the father of President Arroyo. A national election is scheduled in May 2010.
Last year, at the height of global price spikes of rice and other commodities, President Arroyo inked an unusual government-to-government deal with Vietnam, a major rice exporter, to ensure rice supply at home.
The Philippines is the the world's biggest rice importer and have commercial agreements with countries like Thailand and Vietnam.
The typhoons have led the agriculture department to consider additional rice importations to augment supply in the first six months of 2010.
The harvest season has just began when Ondoy and Pepeng hit the key agricultural areas. Rice harvests between late September to December are allocated to meet demand in the first half of 2010.
As of Friday, the Department of Agriculture said "Pepeng" damaged over 650,000 metric tons of paddy rice.
This is equivalent to 0.01% of the 9.5 million metric tons (MT) of palay (paddy rice) produced by the affected areas (see table).
According to Agriculture undersecretary Jesus Paras, the estimated 250,000 MT paddy rice damaged by "Pepeng" in the Ilocos and Cagayan regions (regions 1 and 2, respectively) is worth about P2.5 billion.
The 250,000 MT damaged rice crops is equivalent to about 6% of the rice production in the 2 hard-hit regions.-- by Lala Rimando, abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak, with reports from Michelle Orosa, ABS-CBN News
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Kindly Investigate Philippine Crop Insurance
Kindly investigate whoever in authority the Philippine crop insurance. Most of the rice field they categorized as upland un-irrigated so that when something happened they will pay less as stated in class A irrigated. Let us assume upland un-irrigated 10k per hectare and class A irrigated is 15k per hectare claim.The difference goes to whom during the claim???...
Palayan ko Nalubog din
Palayan ko lumubog din about 10 hectare ready to harvest end of october. Masakit nyan hindi ko kinunan ng insurance dahil sa panggugulang ng Crop insurance. Class A irrigated ang palayan ko pero ang binibigay nila na appriasal upland un-irrigated kaya di na ako kumuha. Ang taas ng gastos pag sinaka dahil yung diesel na ginagamit sa hand tractor at yung irrigisyon di nakakaligtas sa 12% EVAT. 80 liters per week ang kunsumo ko kaya ang EVAT 350 pesos more or less per week in one month 1,400 more or less. Ito sana ang investment ko pero sa nangyari plano ko na gawin fishpond yung lower portion at yung medyo mataas na lugar value crop na lang magtira na lang ng konti para sa palay for family consumption. Mahirap matalo sa di naman sugal di alam kung pano ka makakabawi. Sorry to everyone...ayoko ko na mawalan uli ng 100k+ baka mabaon pa ako sa utang.
Rice shortage again!!..
Oh no hope that after all these calamities Philippines won't have to suffer from another Rice crisis..