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)
