Benguet gov't declares calamity due to potato pest infestation

BENGUET -- The calamity wrought by the potato leaf-miner pest that swooped down last December on the country's potato plateau -- Bu-guias, Benguet -- has spread so fast that the Benguet provincial government recently declared the mountain town a calamity area and gifted it with P1.1 million for its resident farmers to survive the onslaught.

Of the P1.1-million fund, P600,000 shall be used as food assistance to the farmers who have been advised to skip one planting season to starve the potato pests that burrow themselves onto the potato leaves to lay their eggs, killing off the plant's chlorophyll supply.

Some P500,000, on the other hand, shall be distributed as loans to the farmers to tide themselves over the no-planting season.

The calamity-fund assistance from the provincial government came after the only known viable solution -- applying glue on yellow-painted surfaces to attract the yellow-loving pests -- proved much too expensive as the glue easily freezes in the cold, thus the need to keep applying glue every other day.

The leaf-miner pest swooped down on Buguias three months ago last December and has stayed put in the town's picturesque vegetable terraces and even spread west to Mankayan town.

Benguet Governor Raul Molintas says he asked for technical assistance from the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives in Japan last month.