By Robina Asido

Over 50 percent of the agricultural damage caused by recent weather disturbances, including the enhanced southwest monsoon was recorded in rice, the Department of Agriculture (DA) reported on Thursday.

Latest DA data shows that losses in rice reached 52.50 percent of the P3.62 billion damage in agriculture.

"Value of production losses in rice amounts to P1.90 billion with 67,921 ha area affected, and volume of production loss at 59,872 MT or 0.30 percent of the total annual production target volume for rice at 20.29 million MT," it stated.

In an interview at Storycon, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said rice farmers were about to harvest s when the weather disturbances occured.

Despite the losses in rice crops, Tiu Laurel assures that the country still has enough supply until the end of the year.

"For now, we are in a relatively good position when it comes to our rice supply until the end of the year. Our requirements were front-loaded, part of the supply was imported, and we also have significant buffer stocks of locally produced rice from the previous months," he said.

"We actually started the year with all of our NFA (National Food Authority) warehouses fully stocked with rice. We have now brought inventory levels down by as much as 50 percent because we are entering another harvest season. By the end of this year, we expect to be able to replenish and fill all of the NFA warehouses again," he added.

However, Laurel also admitted the need to import rice after the harvest season, noting the need to prepare for a ''very severe El Niño''.

"We will definitely need to increase imports, but only after the harvest season, because we have to prepare for... We may not be feeling the effects right now because of the strong southwest monsoon, but Pagasa (Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Adminstration) is predicting that by November, we could be entering a very severe El Niño. It is expected to continue through February or March next year, so we are already preparing for that," he explained.

Also affected by the impact of the weather disturbances were a total of 86,466 farmers and fisherfolk with 74,809 hectares (ha) of agricultural areas and 87,745 metric tons of production losses.

Other commodities affected include corn, cassava, high-value crops, fisheries, livestock and poultry, and agri-fisheries infrastructure, machinery, and equipment.

The data also shows that 28.37 percent of the losses was due to damaged high value crops amounting to P1.03 billion with 4,869 ha area affected and volume of production loss at 22,415 MT.

"For corn, value of production losses amounts to P119.84 million with area affected of 1,898 ha, and volume of production loss at 4,409 MT or 0.05 percent of the total annual production target volume for corn at 8.80 million MT," it added. PHS