PH Farms Suffering Billions From El Niño Because "We Never Learn" – William Dar

At the Inquirer, Karl R Ocampo says, "Dry Spell Brings Farm Losses To P2.8 Billion," Inquirer.Net, m.inquirer.net, where the above image comes from). This story is in fact the banner headline of the print edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a copy of which on impulse I bought this morning. In the print edition, the subhead says, "Rice and corn farmers have borne the brunt of El Niño, which started more than a month ago and is expected to intensify in April. Among the hardest hit regions are Bicol and Soccsksargen, officials say."

And what does my favorite columnist say?
"We never learn!" (interjection from me)

Talk about timing! In his Manila Times column of today, "Achieving Water Security, Part 2" (28 March 2019, Manila Times, manilatimes.net), William Dar says (my emphasis):

All the while we all knew that an El Niño episode was coming this year and what did we do in advance?

Almost nothing. Or absolutely nothing.

What could we have done? Mr Dar points to the intelligent example of Vietnam, as early as August of 2018, whose agriculture ministry preemptively directed farmers in the Mekong River Delta to adjust their planting calendar, "enabling them to avoid the adverse effects of the dry spell, including seawater intrusion."

In contrast, in the Philippines? Mr Dar says:

Indeed, we never learn.¶ In 2015-2016, the country experienced one of the worst El Niño episodes that affected our agriculture sector severely. And we chose to wallow in amnesia.

Mr Dar is not saying it, but I am:

From the Secretary of Agriculture down to the technician in the field, there has been failure by government agents to serve the best interests of the Filipino farmers in so far as water security is concerned.

Warns Mr Dar – who is a BS Agriculture graduate (Benguet State University) and has a PhD in Horticulture  (UP Los Baños), as well as a 15-year experience as Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, based in India:

Rice imports are set to arrive into the country as the Rice Tariffication Law has already been signed... (Note that) rice farming has the highest water requirement among crops. So, this is actually the worst time for (Filipino) smallholder rice farmers to be hit by El Niño, as they will be facing competition from imports from Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam.

So? So, Mr Dar says, "Eventually, we pay the price." Actually, it's more like this:

We neglect our farmers and theypay the price!

Mr Dar says, no, cloud seeding will not help. Where do the farms store the rainwater? The rains will easily wash away those dried-up top soil (look at the above image again). I organic matter advocate say, that is because those bare soils have no organic matter component to hold not only the plant nutrients but also the water from the rains. If the topsoil is rich in organic matter, it will not be washed away even if rain water flows off.

We never learn!517