By Hilda Austria
ROSALES, Pangasinan – Despite the El Niño phenomenon, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) revealed favorable yields in Pangasinan’s irrigated farmlands.
Engineer John Molano, Division Manager of NIA-Pangasinan Irrigation Management Office (PIMO), stated in a Thursday interview that they surpassed their water irrigation target for this year’s dry cropping season. The target expanded from 41,515 hectares (ha) to 46,024 ha.
He said even the 18,000 vulnerable areas were able to harvest despite the challenge during the dry cropping season, which is from November to March.
“Nakarami ng ani ang mga farmers (the farmers were able to harvest more) with an average of 100 metric tons per hectare or a total of an estimated 6.6 million metric tons harvested during the dry season,” he said.
Molano said they implemented constant monitoring and evaluation of progress of farming in the areas declared as vulnerable.
They also strengthened the implementation of the scheduled rotational water delivery and distribution, he said.
“Tamang program planning. Namigay din ng water pumps sa buong Pangasinan (It was through proper program planning. We also distributed water pumps in the whole province),” Molano said.
He said more than 643 water pumps were distributed, especially in vulnerable areas, so far this year.
He said they have also utilized around half of the PHP1 billion budget allotted for the province for this year under the solar water irrigation systems.
Meanwhile, Molano said the different government agencies will again convene for the preparation for the wet cropping season, which is from June to October.
“We will soon conduct the system management coordination meeting,” he added. (PNA)
