QUINTA DAMAGE. Typhoon “Quinta” leaves the province of Antique with PHP11 million in damage to palay production. Office of the Provincial Agriculture chief Nicolasito Calawag said Tuesday (Oct. 27, 2020) they had requested the Department of Agriculture Regional Office 6 for replanting materials. (PNA photo by Annabel Consuelo J. Petinglay)
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – Typhoon “Quinta” left the province with PHP11.196 million in damage to palay production, the Office of the Provincial Agriculture (OPA) reported Tuesday.
In an interview, OPA chief Nicolasito Calawag said seven municipalities have submitted their partial report on the damage to palay as a result of the flooding of rice paddies.
The reports were from municipal agriculture officers of the towns of San Jose de Buenavista, Patnongon, Sibalom, Libertad, Bugasong, Anini-y, and Barbaza.
“The flooding of the rice paddies damaged the crop planted on a total of 575 hectares in the seven towns,” he said.
Calawag said of the total, 109.4 hectares are totally damaged and need replanting.
“The damaged palay are on their seeding and vegetative stages,” he added.
Calawag said they have requested the Department of Agriculture (DA) Regional Office 6 to allow the province to use its buffer stock in its warehouse in Barangay Padang, Patnongon for replanting of the affected farmers.
“I am still waiting for DA’s approval,” he said.
Despite the damage on palay output, Calawag remains optimistic about hitting the target of producing 250,000 metric tons by December.
“We had a good palay production during the first cropping because of the favorable weather then,” he said, adding the damage on the second cropping is considered to be negligible. (PNA)
