Rice yield drops anew in SurSur
By Greg Tataro Jr.
TANDAG CITY, Surigao del Sur, May 29 (PIA) – A streak of undesirable condition has continued to harm the rice industry in the province, despite the mitigating measures that had been put in place to blunt the impact of the dry spell as well as other plagues, according to Marcos Quico, chief of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPAg).
Citing the adverse effect of mild El Niño followed by the infestation of “Brown Plant Hopper, Stem Borer, Rice Blasts and Rodents,” harvest had been all the more kept down, he noted.
On the “RICE INDUSTRY SITUATION” status report as of April 30, 2016, OPAg had posted a shortfall of 0.60 metric tons per hectare in just three top performing municipalities, specifically, Madrid, Carmen, and Cantilan.
Province-wide, in all three ecosystems—irrigated, rainfed, and upland—production had been badly hit as harvest was only averaging 3.15 metric tons/hectare. In 2015, farmers in Madrid town had hit an average production of 4.83 metric tons/hectare; but during the first cropping this year, yield had gone down to as low as 2.16 metric tons/hectare, based on reports released by the same office.
Also, this year, in areas serviced by the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), the target to be planted with rice was placed at 12,760 hectares, but only 12,603.79 hectares were able to be accomplished—a difference of 156.21 hectares.
The above figure was apart from the rainfed and upland areas of 1,125.61 hectares combined that were missed to be planted.
In January, this year, Quico said that in 2014, a total of 33,701 hectares were reported to have been planted as compared to only 31,059 hectares in 2015.
Worse, during the first cropping this year, only a total of 23,772.39 hectares were reported to have been planted in spite of the 24,898 hectares being targeted, it was learned. (Radyo ng Bayan-Tandag/PIA-Surigao del Sur)