Irrigation agency spends P50M for projects
The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) aims to cover 1,516 hectares of land under its Repair and Establishment of Groundwater Irrigation Project this year, NIA administrator Antonio Nangel said.
The project uses pumps to bring irrigation services to farms and develops small water-impounding systems, Nangel said.
The agency is spending about P50 million for this, he said.
Earlier, the NIA said it had implemented five foreign-assisted, 23 locally funded projects, three inter-agency projects, and seven carry-over projects.
The agency reported a 135-percent cropping intensity in the country’s rice lands after irrigating a total area of more than 1 million hectares from May 2010 to March 2011.
The agency said it irrigated a total of 1,034,516 ha broken down as follows: 546,363 ha during the wet season (from May to October 2010) and 490,153 ha during the dry season (November 2010 to March 2011).
From July 2010 to April 2011, NIA said it irrigated a total of 194,570 ha.—Riza Olchondra
