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By Rhaydz B. Barcia, Correspondent
LEGAZPI CITY: If the National
Irrigation Administration (NIA) would address the food production
problems in the Philippines, then it would need a budget of P22
billion for the rehabilitation and irrigation of the 368,000
hectares of waterless rice lands, NIA administrator Carlos Salazar
told The Manila Times.
Salazar said a lot of NIA
projects are defective and no longer functional for a couple of
years as a result of massive devastation brought by natural
calamities, which worsen the current food crisis in the country.
“We need P22 billion to restore
the projects nationwide to mitigate and improve the food production
by rehabilitating all nonfunctional facilities to irrigate the
368,000 farmlands throughout the country,” Salazar said.
At 80 bags yield per hectare from
368,000 hectares of waterless rice lands, about 29, 440,000 bags of
palay could be reaped if the government will speed up the
restoration of defective irrigation facilities in the country
particularly in typhoon regions like Bicol and Visayas.
NIA officials said they are
eyeing to fix all defective irrigation facilities to irrigate at
least 100,000 hectares every year to completely restore and cover
the 368,000 hectares of rice lands by 2010.
The NIA officials, led by Salazar
and in coordination with Chito Monson, chief of Office of the
Presidential Adviser for Bicol sought out the World Bank to finance
the rehabilitation of 4,000 hectares farmlands covering Libmanan and
Cabusao towns in Camarines Sur.
The project cost, which covered
the rehabilitation of 4,000-hectare farmlands, diversion canal and
putting up of dam, totaled P670,607,300 million.
The Libmanan-Cabusao project,
which has a service area of 2,076 hectares and 2,183 beneficiaries,
was originally operated by pumps but the high cost of operating and
maintaining the pumps limited the extent of irrigable area,
according to engineer William Ragodon, NIA acting regional manager.
Ragodon said it could only
irrigate an actual area of 1,570 hectares of rice during the wet
season and 1,470 hectares during the dry season.
“It is for this season that the
NIA field office requested the feasibility study. The project is
envisioned to irrigate an area of about 4,000 hectares in 16
barangays located in the municipalities of Libmanan and Cabusao in
the province of Camarines Sur,”
The NIA central office also
allocated P56 million for the restoration of damaged irrigation
facilities in Oas-Libon Albay. The project is expected to help and
benefit at least 1,345 farmers in the third district of Albay.
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