Seen from above, vast swathes of farms in the central Philippines have turned into large pools of stagnant brown water, and officials say the flooding is slowly killing rice harvests and placing the country at risk of a rice shortage.
Severe flooding caused by tropical storm Ketsana on 26 September not only killed nearly 300 people and affected more than three million more, it also caused considerable damage to the farming sector, says the government. Agriculture accounts for a major part of the Philippine economy.
Dealing a second blow to the sector, super typhoon Parma slammed into northern Luzon island on 3 October, killing at least 15 people and inundating the country's traditional rice bowl with flood water, drowning crops that were to have been ready for harvesting.
Large parts of Cagayan province, where Parma made landfall, remain without electricity and telecommunication facilities. Roads have also been rendered impassable due to landslides and flooding after rivers overflowed.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council has initially estimated the damage to agriculture at 5.5 billion pesos (US$117 million), with the figure projected to rise once the government completes a final assessment.
"Large rice fields have been damaged," said Bellaflor Angara, the governor of Aurora province in central Luzon. "We are trying to get everything back to normal, but we expect this to take some time."
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said the damage to agriculture could affect the country's rice supply by next year, forcing President Gloria Arroyo to order immediate imports to stave off a supply crunch that could exacerbate the crisis.
"Many irrigation facilities have [been destroyed] and urgently need repair," Yap told a cabinet meeting, according to an IRIN source. Yap also recommended the mass distribution of high-quality seeds to replace crops destroyed, even as he acknowledged that inundated rice fields would take time to recover, said the source.
"We need to help our farmers. The president has in fact ordered that our farmers be given free rice seedlings,” presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde told reporters.
Yap, for his part, has said the country of 92 million is assured of enough rice stocks until December, although there could be a shortage by the first half of the 2010.
Overwhelmed
The successive typhoons have overwhelmed the government's disaster response mechanism, forcing Arroyo to place the entire country under a "state of calamity", allowing local governments to quickly release contingency funding for rebuilding.
The UN also issued a flash appeal on 3 October for $74 million; more than 400,000 people are still in makeshift evacuation camps, while large suburban areas remain under water.
And while international aid has been trickling in, areas that have remained logistically difficult to reach have seen people fighting over aid.
Much of Manila's eastern section remains chaotic.
Mountains of rubbish lie rotting by roadsides, while hundreds of thousands are camping out in public schools. Efforts to resume classes and bring back normal school schedules have largely failed as many survivors are using the buildings for shelter, where they have access to water and toilets.
"IOM has made it a target in all donor appeals for camp management primarily to directly assist the Department of Social Welfare in camps and in return communities," said Ida Mae Fernandez, regional programme officer for the International Organization of Migration.
State weather forecasters say Parma is nearly stationary west of Luzon now, and could potentially make a U-turn as another typhoon - Melor - was pulling it back to Philippine territory.
Melor is expected to enter Philippine maritime territory late on 5 October, bringing more rains and misery to the battered country before heading north to Japan.
jg/ey/mw
Severe flooding caused by tropical storm Ketsana on 26 September not only killed nearly 300 people and affected more than three million more, it also caused considerable damage to the farming sector, says the government. Agriculture accounts for a major part of the Philippine economy.
Dealing a second blow to the sector, super typhoon Parma slammed into northern Luzon island on 3 October, killing at least 15 people and inundating the country's traditional rice bowl with flood water, drowning crops that were to have been ready for harvesting.
Large parts of Cagayan province, where Parma made landfall, remain without electricity and telecommunication facilities. Roads have also been rendered impassable due to landslides and flooding after rivers overflowed.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council has initially estimated the damage to agriculture at 5.5 billion pesos (US$117 million), with the figure projected to rise once the government completes a final assessment.
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Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said the damage to agriculture could affect the country's rice supply by next year, forcing President Gloria Arroyo to order immediate imports to stave off a supply crunch that could exacerbate the crisis.
"Many irrigation facilities have [been destroyed] and urgently need repair," Yap told a cabinet meeting, according to an IRIN source. Yap also recommended the mass distribution of high-quality seeds to replace crops destroyed, even as he acknowledged that inundated rice fields would take time to recover, said the source.
"We need to help our farmers. The president has in fact ordered that our farmers be given free rice seedlings,” presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde told reporters.
Yap, for his part, has said the country of 92 million is assured of enough rice stocks until December, although there could be a shortage by the first half of the 2010.
Photo: Jason Gutierrez/IRIN  |
| A father carries his daughter on his back as they wade through putrid, brown flood water in suburban Pasig district in Manila |
The successive typhoons have overwhelmed the government's disaster response mechanism, forcing Arroyo to place the entire country under a "state of calamity", allowing local governments to quickly release contingency funding for rebuilding.
The UN also issued a flash appeal on 3 October for $74 million; more than 400,000 people are still in makeshift evacuation camps, while large suburban areas remain under water.
And while international aid has been trickling in, areas that have remained logistically difficult to reach have seen people fighting over aid.
Much of Manila's eastern section remains chaotic.
Mountains of rubbish lie rotting by roadsides, while hundreds of thousands are camping out in public schools. Efforts to resume classes and bring back normal school schedules have largely failed as many survivors are using the buildings for shelter, where they have access to water and toilets.
"IOM has made it a target in all donor appeals for camp management primarily to directly assist the Department of Social Welfare in camps and in return communities," said Ida Mae Fernandez, regional programme officer for the International Organization of Migration.
State weather forecasters say Parma is nearly stationary west of Luzon now, and could potentially make a U-turn as another typhoon - Melor - was pulling it back to Philippine territory.
Melor is expected to enter Philippine maritime territory late on 5 October, bringing more rains and misery to the battered country before heading north to Japan.
jg/ey/mw
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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