TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, July 6 (PIA) -- With agricultural losses comprising of damaged crops and lost opportunities reaching P110 million already, Gov. Erico Aristotle C. Aumentado is seeking an intervention for the cloud seeding operations starting this month as a necessary strategy to help mitigate the losses brought about by the dry spell.

With P2.5 million allocation from the province’s 70% calamity funds, Aumentado believes an additional P7.5 million is necessary to complete the cloud seeding operations for the second half of the year in Bohol.

With this, the governor is requesting from the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) to cover the needed P7.5M to address the damage that the incoming El Niño phenomenon will bring to the agriculture and fisheries sectors in the province.

It may be recalled that the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) has forecast the likelihood for El Niño to occur beginning May to July 2023, with an 82% to 93% probability in December 2023 to February 2024.

The El Niño, short for El Nino Southern Oscillation, is known to increase the likelihood of below-normal rainfall conditions, which can bring negative impacts such as drought, shortage of food supply and the natural consequence iof rise in prices of basic commodities.

As of June 2, 2023, reports from the Municipal Agriculture Offices of the 41 local government units here showed that 71.5 hectares of crops have been affected by the limited rainfall.

This includes 11.1 hectares of rice, 3 hectares of corn, and 57.3 hectares of High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP) commodities.

The Office of the Provincial Agriculture (OPA) has initially pegged the loss and damage to crops at around P110M, with P4M in damage to crops and P106 M of missed opportunities for commodities that were not planted due to the low rainfall in the initial stage of the dry spell.

The OPA said this has already affected 2,055 farmers cultivating a total area of 1,351 hectares.

However, the towns of Alburquerque, Corella, Cortes, Inabanga, Loon, Pres. CPG, and Sagbayan have yet to submit their agricultural damage reports.

Initially, the Water Resources Management Division of the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) has conducted a pre-cloud seeding assessment and site validation of Malinao, Bayongan, Capayas and Zamora Dams.

In its assessment, the BSWM recommended for cloud seeding operations to be rolled out as early as this month to replenish the water level of the dams, which supply irrigation to 9,926 hectares of the programmed rice areas under the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) in preparation for the next cropping season.

BSWM also said that the projection of dam levels when the dry season cropping starts in October 2023-March 2024 may be insufficient to cater to the whole program areas.

Earlier, Aumentado bared that Bohol has allocated P2.5M for cloud seeding operations.

The amount, however, is barely enough for one set of cloud seeding operations to be conducted in 45 days from July to September.

The dry season cropping starts by October and more cloud seeding operations are needed for the next six months.

In view of this, the governor wrote a letter to the BSWM requesting for an allocation of P7.5M for cloud seeding operations for the next 135 days, from October 2023-March 2024.

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan joint Committees on Agriculture, with Committee on Finance, Budget and Appropriations and Peace and Order and Public Safety, in its meeting on July 4 have recommended for the passage of a resolution requesting the BSWM to fund the conduct of additional cloud seeding operations for the second half of the year 2023 to mitigate the impact of livelihood of affected farmers and inland fisher folk in Bohol. (RAHC/PIA-7 Bohol)