NIA tells farmers: There’s enough water
The National Irrigation Administration said Friday the country’s supply of impounded water would be enough to address farmers’ irrigation needs over the next two months—considered to be the hottest time of the year.
NIA Administrator Florencio F. Padernal said in a briefing that, as of Friday, the water levels of all major irrigation dams were above the critical level.
“Supply is good up to end of May,” Padernal said. “The water management schemes that we started last September helped us maintain water levels in major irrigation facilities.”
Also, the NIA chief noted that the agency expected minimal release of dam water for irrigation, considering that most farmers who till irrigated rice farms were already done with the season’s harvest.
Padernal said that the NIA would soon meet with farmers’ groups and irrigators’ associations to discuss their cropping schedules.
He added that if, in the next two months, water levels at irrigation dams would have to be raised, the NIA had a P500-million fund that it could use for cloud seeding sorties over watershed areas.
According to Bonifacio S. Labiano, who is in charge of the NIA’s action plan for El Niño, the agency stands ready to implement measures in case of a water supply crisis.
Labiano said these include the promotion of advance cropping and the use of quick-growing rice varieties. Also, the agency will undertake infrastructure work such as lining the canals and reusing irrigation water.
The NIA would also encourage “prudent irrigation” among farmers, and urge tillers to grow vegetables instead.
In the latest El Niño update issued earlier this month, the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that, due to the expected weakness of El Niño this year, the weather disturbance would have no significant global impact.
