Farmers, fisherfolk rebuild lives

TACLOBAN CITY: The road to recovery was not easy for farmers and fisherfolk who lost almost everything they had when Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) struck on November 8, 2013. Many of them were already hard-pressed to make ends meet even before the disaster and the will to rebuild their lives had almost faded.

“When the typhoon hit, our rice was almost ready and we were expecting a good harvest,” narrated Susan Gaspay of Burauen, Leyte. “We lost everything – our ready-to-harvest rice, our stored seeds, and our rented tractor, not to mention our house.”