Sunday, July 13, 2008 [ manilatimes.net ]
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.
