Rep. Emilio Bernardino Yulo (Neg. Occ., 5th District) is asking the Department of Agriculture, the Sugar Regulatory Administration and the Negros Occidental provincial government to prep-up for eventual cloud seeding amidst the extreme heat recently.
“We are in the middle of planting and cultivation particularly in the sugar industry and getting this extreme heat and probably a dry spell in the coming weeks will have a drastic effect on our agriculture,” Yulo said on Sunday, April 16.
Yulo is appealing to the DA, the SRA and the province to “come up with a plan and start preparing for scheduled cloud-seeding to ensure that our industry will not suffer from this extreme weather condition.”
Negros Occidental is the largest sugar producing province in the country.
Yulo said that efforts are being done to ensure the sugar industry increases its productivity after a low output in the last crop year.
“We need to make sure that these efforts will not go to waste because we are not prepared to combat the effects of a dry spell which is totally beyond the control of our farmers,” Yulo said.
The dry spell is expected to affect Negros Occidental’s sugar production, industry leaders told DIGICAST NEGROS on Friday, April 14.
Manuel Lamata, United Sugar Producers Federation president, said the dry spell, will definitely cause a drop in sugar production.
Enrique Rojas, National Federation of Sugarcane Planters president, said the dry spell poses a challenge to planters and millers.
They should work together to ensure that the sugarcane are transported and milled as soon as possible after they are harvested to minimize the loss of sugarcane juice due to evaporation caused by the dry weather, Rojas said.
Aurelio Gerardo J. Valderrama Jr., Confederation of Sugar Producers’ Associations president, said farms that have irrigation will have better production, but for most areas where agrarian reform beneficiaries are located production will definitely go down.*