When there is no rain, farmers adapt

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

One of the most severely drought-affected provinces in the Philippines is Antique where an estimated 1,700 farmers working on around 2,500 hectares of farmland that are being affected by El Niño. The town of Hamtic is most damaged. Around 1,500 farmers living in the area are experiencing under-average yield in their harvests which had reduced income of the farming families.

Noe Metoy, a native of the area says that he has never experienced this kind of searing heat in his 20 years of farming. “El Niño has greatly affected my farming. Before, I could harvest a minimum of 25 sacks of rice . The last time I harvested was September and our yield was only 15 sacks,” the 54-year old said.

Noe said that the abnormal harvest was caused by the lack of rain during the last season. Normally, he and his brothers would plant during the last week of May and then the rains would fall between June and August. After harvesting their first crop for the year, they would plant a second crop between October and November. But this time, they decided not to plant the second crop since the drought has left no water. 

“I am really worried where to get our source of rice for the next months. I have tried planting vegetables in our little backyard so I can sell it in the market and earn for our family’s daily expenses,” said Noe.

Noe was about to lose hope for his vegetable gardening as he watched his crops wither and the drought slowly evaporated their water supply. An irrigation system normally supplies unlimited water the plants but the supply had dwindled to three or four pails a day.

Fortunately, Noe Meto’s daughter is a sponsored child of World Vision. Aside from being sponsored on her education from elementary until college, the 21-year old Noe Mae, also received a gift from her sponsor, which the family used to buy materials for the construction of their new water supply facility. “My daughter’s gift from her sponsor is like rain. It is a blessing to our family. We can finally build a new water supply system that won’t be affected by the drought. We bought a water hose which is more than 20 meters long and we also built a water tank to store the water,” the jubilant father shared.

Farmers like Noe are struggling all over the world as El Niño has left 60 million people in need or humanitarian assistance. Droughts like that which they have endured are becoming 'the new normal'. Yet, in many places, it can take one simple intervention, such as the irrigation system in Noe town and a shift from cultivating rice to cultivating vegetables, to make these farmers resilient to the unforgiving weather.