From Isabela to Manila: Farmers dump dried out crops at agri department, march towards Mendiola

From Isabela to Manila
Farmers dump dried out crops at agri department, march towards Mendiola

MANILA, Philippines – In seeking support to buffer out the damage caused by El Niño in the region, about 300 Cagayan Valley farmers led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) and Danggayan Dagiti Mannalon ti Cagayan Valley (Danggayan-CV, KMP Cagayan Valley) arrived in Manila to demand the Dept. of Agriculture of support and protest the Arroyo government’s inaction and corruption on the P1.7-billion calamity fund at Mendiola bridge.

“The calamity-stricken farmers have arrived in Manila, after thousands joined their rally at the provincial agriculture office in Isabela. They are protesting the insubstantial, sufficient and effective measures of the government to address the effects of El Niño on their crops and livelihood,” said Danilo Ramos, KMP Secretary-General.

“They have nothing to salvage of their crops, they are totally dried out. Even when the calamity has already taken its toll on the crops, there were no visible and active measure made by the agri dept. That is why they came here,” he said.

Danggayan-CV reported that the damage in Isabela were P1.3-billion was lost from 61,264 hectares of rice lands that dried out, P1.8-billion from 87,657 has. of corn, P4.1-million on vegetables and citrus and P1.3-million on fisheries. In Cagayan, damage to crops and livelihood amount to P900-million. Also, 45% of rice lands on 28 towns in Isabela and 67% of the corn lands in 33 towns have been destroyed which caused utmost poverty and hunger to an estimated 94,674 farming families or 568,044 individuals.

“The Arroyo government is pathetic in dealing with El Niño. It was never prepared and allocated a small P1.7-billion on January covering the whole country. The highly-boasted 600 water pumps are still nowhere to be found, even so, these could only irrigate 8% of the damaged farmlands. Cloudseeding claimed by the DA are also late and ineffective,” said Daniel Alupay, Danggayan Dagiti Mannalon ti Isabela (DAGAMI) Spokesperson.

“From the calamity fund of Isabela, only 50 water pumps are to planned to be dispersed but on March 1, only 16 pumps were distributed. This futile effort could only salvage 1,000 has. on the critical period of February-March, while 148,921 has. are in danger. Fuel subsidy of P1,000 are also to be given to those who have motor pumps. Of the P17-million calamity fund for January to March, a measly P2-million was released,” said Alupay.

“Some of our immediate demands is food relief for the affected farmers, 1 sack of rice per month to every farming households affected, free medicines and a moratorium on the power rate hike. Those who could not pay electricity bills should not be immediately cut off. For rehabilitation of our livelihood, we demand non-hybrid and GMO seeds vegetables, upland rice, white corn, alongwith power sprayers, animal dispersals of hogs and feeds, goats. The cancellation of our NIA and SWIP back-accounts or the charging of irrigation fee even there is no irrigation should be implemented right away,” Alupay said.

KMP is also calling for concrete demands such as (1) moratorium on payment of land rent of farms damaged (2) postponement of payment to debts from landlords, traders and Quedancor and cancellation of interests to those with damaged crops (3) financial compensation of P10,000 – P15,000 per hectare of damaged crops; (3) zero-interest credit line from Land Bank amounting to P10,000 to P15,000 per hectare; (4) moratorium on irrigation fees of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and cancellation of back-accounts or payments of farmers not benefitting from irrigation; (5) acquisition of motorized water-pumps, pipes and tubes, tractors, hand tractors, farm tools and carabaos to legitimate farmers’ organization and fuel subsidy for its operation, (6) seeds of traditional and indigenous varities of rice and corn, not hybrid and GMO; (7) relief package majorly composed of 1 sack of rice per farming househoulds, accompanied with grocery goods; (8) investigation and review on the management and operations of dams nationwide; (9) housing assistance especially to those ravaged by typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng.

“These are our immediate demands at present, and we know that the government is capable of giving them to the farmers. Instead of giving them through local government units, we demand that they be given to legitimate farmers organizations to prevent corruption,” said Ramos.

KMP said that even when the scale of the crisis are made known in Manila, government agencies such as the Dept. of Agriculture seem to “so cool, relaxed and doing nothing” because the affected farmers could not receive the measures they are reporting on the media. There were no mechanisms to verify the handling of the supposed support and subsidies to the farmers.

“The problem aside from El Niño is corruption. This is exactly what we faced during typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng last year. The crops were destroyed and yet the DA seemed clueless of what should it do, funds were released but no support was felt by the farmers. We talked with DA officials last October and presented our specific demands and we are here to follow it up,” said Ramos.

After the protest and dialogue with DA officials, farmers marched towards Mendiola bridge.

“We are here to yell our grievances for Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to hear. We are also showing the people in Manila that the Arroyo government is useless when farmers face calamities such as El Niño. She is also the culprit of the farmers poverty and indebtedness when she pushed for the massive importation of rice and corn last year, depressing farmgate prices of our crops,” Alupay said.

“We oppose the gov’t plans to import more rice by using El Niño as excuse. Damage may hit a maximum of 300,000 metric tons but it is even smaller than our annual end stock at 2.6 million metric tons on 2008. Thus, there is no basis for increased imports, worse they would simply depress farmgate prices and compete with locally-produced rice, causing bankruptcy and indebtedness to farmers,” Ramos said.

KMP said that a major factor in agriculture is non-irrigation where NIA reports that it has irrigated 46% or 1.4 million has. of the 3.1 million has..

“We could not even verify if the NIA reports are true as the highest irrigated rice lands was reported at 1 million has. every 4th quarter of the year,” said Ramos.

The groups are also questioning the operation of Magat dam, now owned by SN Aboitiz, which was privatized in 2006 through the Electric Power Industry Reforms Act of 2001 (EPIRA). Magat dam was built in 1983 and funded by the World Bank (WB), United Nation’s Int’l Fund for Agriculural Dev’t (IFAD) and Asian Dev’t Bank (ADB), to irrigate 97,402 has. of the Cagayan river basin and to produce 360 megawatts of electricity through its hydro-electric power plant. Prior to its privatization in 2006, it served as an ample source of irrigation to Cagayan Valley which made it the third (to Central Luzon and Western Visayas) rice granary of the country producing about 2 million metric tons or 12.37% of the country’s production. However, Isabela came second to Nueva Ecija among provinces, producing 1 million metric tons or 6.33% of the country’s total of 2008.

“It is very disturbing that the privatization of Magat dam has destroyed Isabela and Cagayan Valley’s reputation of being a rice granary. Nueva Ecija which produces about 1.37 million metric tons probably sustained its crops as Pantabangan dam is serving as irrigation for the farms at its area. This should be investigated as concretely the programs and policies of the Arroyo government have impaired our food production and wreaked havoc to the livelihoods of farmers,” said Ramos.

“It is very clear that ‘typhoon Gloria’ is the worst of all calamities to happen to farmers. Her policies and programs are all towards killing farmers, putting us in debt and unimaginable poverty. She should be put under the sun the whole day for her to know the feeling of being dried out,” Ramos said. #