With only 45% farmland

planted, CSO to continue

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, Aug 20 (PIA)—Bohol farmers now struggling to keep their rice fields water-logged would find help from the skies, this as Bohol has funded another 20 hours of cloud seeding operations (CSO).

The Capitol decision was also based on the request of the Federation of Irrigators Association, League of Municipal Agriculturists who are monitors of the local agriculture situation and the Municipal Agriculture and Fisheries Council of Carmen who saw that there are still areas in Bohol which are in dire need of water for farm preparation and sustaining the growing crops.

This too as, of the 17,535.47 hectares of rice fields which the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) programmed for planting this wet cropping season, only 7,993.46 hectares or 45 percent have been planted, as of August 12, according to a report from the Department of Agriculture (DA) through Science Research Specialist Cecille Opada.

The 45 percent, in fact, may not have all the needed irrigation water for the crops to last its needs during its vegetative and reproductive stages, hints NIA Bohol Irrigation System (BIS) and Bohol Integrated Irrigation System (BIIS) chief, Engr. Evelina Putong, in a meeting recently.

She said that of the 58,222 hectares of rice farms in Bohol, due to the lingering effects of below normal rainfall even with the onset of the rainy season in June, only 12,115.36 hectares are assured of at least initial irrigation, and as soon as additional rains get collected in Bohol’s dams, NIA would expand its programmed areas for irrigation service, so farmers can catch-up with the wet cropping planting season, which should have started in May.

In time, the Office of the Provincial Agriculture (OPA) proposed for cloud seeding operations, and Capitol set aside P2.5 million from its Provincial Disaster and Risk Reduction Management (PDRRM) funds for the intervention.

At the same time, seeing the dire need for immediate intervention to allow farmers to plant, the Department of Agriculture (DA) was able to source out some P5 million from its Rice Production Support Program, for which as agreed by the multi-agency created Cloud Seeding Operations Task Force (CSOTF), would be initially used while waiting for the P2.5M local fund to be released.

According to the Opada, the cloud seeding operations which happened on the second week of June brought down the necessary precipitation to add water to the dams while allowing farmers in non-irrigated farmlands to start their land preparation.

As of July 29, when the cloud seeding operations was down to its few more hours of mission sorties, from an initial NIA programmed farm areas of 5,786 hectares for irrigation coverage using their available water before cloud seeding, the figure expanded to 11,185.04 hectares, noting a 63.27 percent increase, with the induced rains filling the need for more water.

Over all, of Bohol’s 598,222 hectares of rice lands, only 27,806 are irrigated, while 30,416 are located in rain-fed areas, which also benefitted from the cloud seeding operations.

Already late in the wet cropping season, Bohol farmers who noted the La Nina alert, gambled to start planting, even without the assurance of irrigation water, hoping that the La Nina spawned rains could fill in the need for water to maintain their rice when the rains fed by the cloud seeding operations would have dried.

This also proved to be a great risk as the natural rains have not been consistent, their harrowed farms now dried up, the seedlings getting burnt and the leaves of newly transplanted seedlings staring to curl in.

Still battling with food security and sufficiency especially with food inflation here going up, Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado stresses that securing sufficient rice would narrow the gap in the bottom poor spending, and hopefully ease out the overall inflation here.

It was also during the time of the late Governor Erico Boyles Aumentado, the governor’s father, when Bohol breached into over 100 percent rice sufficiency for the per capita consumption.

The son of the former governor however has got a lot of fixing to do to get back to the bringing inflation down and allowing more productivity in communities, and this starts with the ill effects of climate change.

In fact, according to NIA, they started releasing irrigation water to their programmed areas, noting also that the state weather bureau has announced the onset of the rainy season last June.

However, with the wet cropping season supposedly starting in May, the drying dams and the dried up watersheds have necessitated the need for interventions in agriculture, thus the much delayed cloud seeding aided by politics disguised as bureaucracy in the OPA, according to BCSOTF members.

With very vocal critics playing with public perception, the younger Aumentado has to double up on listening to farmers who direly need the water for their farms and the meteorological sciences behind cloud seeding operations than over bitter political enemies and media aiming to discredit the Administration with a mandate from 469,736 Boholanos.

Intent on salvaging whatever can be saved from those farmers who gambled in planting without much of the promise of irrigation water, only to find that the rains have not been consistently coming, Capitol has issued Executive Order No. 29, series of 2024, reconstituting the Bohol Cloud Seeding Operations Task Force and continuing its operations after the first 50 hours of operations funded by the DA BSWM. (PIABohol)

CLOUD SEEDING CONTINUES. With some P2.5 M funds from the Provincial Disaster and Risk Reduction Management (PDRRM), worried farmers of Malinao Dam Irrigators association led by Virgilio Margatinez, will have something to look forward to, now that the rains have not come and their crops already showing signs of stress due to lack of water. Capitol exec Assistant for Agriculture Nunila Pinat announced the resumption of the cloud seeding operations starting this week. (PIABohol)

RICE SUFFICIENCY. DA science research specialist Cecile Opada has hinted that a cloud seeding operation while waiting for the natural rains brought by La Nina can fall, makes sense especially that only 45% of the targeted have been planted, and these crops may not be live without enough water to sustain their growth. (PIABohol)