Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said the Negros Occidental provincial government will “go green” in the fight to eradicate the Red-striped soft scale insect (RSSI) infestation in sugarcane fields, it will not fund the proposed islandwide aerial spraying of chemicals.
The provincial government will only support biological control to prevent the spread of RSSI, Lacson said on Tuesday, July 14.
Lacson said the provincial government will support a natural approach not only for RSSI but also for all future pest problems.
They will support fungal production as one of the primary ways to prevent the spread of RSSI, he said.
There are also many sectors wary of massive aerial spraying because wind direction cannot be controlled, and there are densely populated barangays, aquaculture, and livestock farms located adjacent to sugarcane fields, he said.
Lacson said the provincial government has already declared a province-wide State of Calamity due to RSSI to hasten the release of funds to address the problem. Consequently, there is no longer a need for individual town and city governments to issue similar declarations as the provincial declaration allows them to release their own local disaster funds, he said.
United Federation of Sugar Producers (UNIFED) president Manuel Lamata has proposed massive aerial spraying of chemicals across Negros Island to combat RSSI.
Meanwhile, Rep. Emilio Bernardino Yulo (Neg. Occ., 5th District) said a team from the National Crop Protection Center will arrive Wednesday to discuss how to address the problems of RSSI, armyworms, and integrated pest management.
NACUSIP’S STAND
The National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines–Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (NACUSIP–TUCP), in a press statement Tuesday, commended the Negros Island Region (NIR) local chief executives for deploying emergency interventions against the RSSI infestation.
However, the group demanded that local governments bypass bureaucratic bottlenecks to release emergency calamity funds directly to small farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) facing severe economic devastation.
NACUSIP lauded Lacson and the members of the Negros Occidental Sangguniang Panlalawigan for placing the entire province under a State of Calamity on June 30. This blanket, province-wide declaration bypassed localized fiscal limitations, immediately unlocking the Provincial Quick Response Fund to fast-track emergency containment measures, the group said.
NACUSIP–TUCP also lauded Gov. Manuel Sagarbarria and the members of the Negros Oriental Sangguniang Panlalawigan for establishing a dedicated provincial task force backed by an initial ₱15 million allocation for immediate containment and farmer subsidies.
The Negros Oriental Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC) announced on Tuesday that it has approved a resolution recommending a provincial State of Calamity declaration following the continued spread of RSSI.
The RSSI infestation has been reported in the municipality of Mabinay, as well as the cities of Bais, Bayawan, and Guihulngan, posing a serious threat to the province’s sugar industry and the livelihoods of thousands of farmers, the PDRRMC said.
NACUSIP–TUCP criticized the containment strategies executed by the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), calling out the recorded failure of the agency’s highly publicized drone and aerial chemical-spraying campaigns.
“The reliance on drone technology and conventional aerial spraying has proven to be an expensive failure on the ground,” NACUSIP–TUCP National President Roland de la Cruz declared.
“Sugar workers and agricultural experts have observed that the RSSI pest fundamentally breeds and lives on the underside and lower parts of the sugarcane leaves,” he said.
“Overhead drone and aerial spraying merely coat the top canopy, allowing the chemical agents to wash off or evaporate without ever reaching the core of the infestation. This mistargeted approach has allowed the insects to simply migrate to adjacent untreated farms, rendering millions of pesos in tech-driven interventions utterly useless,” he said.*
[sibwp_form id=1]