DAMAGE brought by recent heavy rains and floods to agriculture sector of Negros Occidental has surged to P5.05 million, latest report from the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) showed.
Based on OPA’s progress report covering January 12 to 16, 86 rice farmers from six villages of Cadiz City incurred damage and production losses worth almost P1.43 million.
The area affected is estimated at 75.20 hectares, it said.
Also, 38 high-value commercial crops (HVCC) farmers in the city with combined areas of 8.235 hectares had reported damage of almost P1.35 million.
The biggest amount of damage and production losses was noted in Victorias City, at almost P2.28 million.
The figure comprises 312 rice farmers with 158.32-hectare farms in six barangays of the northern Negros town, the report added.
Provincial Agriculturist Japhet Masculino yesterday said most of the affected rice farms are in vegetative and reproductive stages so the tendency to recover from the losses is still high.
For those in ripening stage, Masculino said they advise farmers to harvest their crops due to immediate “spoiling” of grains.
During the first month of the year, they already monitored about P22 million worth of damage to the crop sector.
The latest P5.05 million damaged is on top of about P17 million losses left by the onslaught of Tropical Storm Agaton during the first week of the month.
In 2017, OPA recorded a total damage and production losses worth about P90 million to the province’s agro-fishery sector also due to calamities, pest and diseases.
