NIA assures Nueva Ecija farmers of sufficient irrigation water

MANILA, Phillipines - Officials of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) have assured farmers in the country’s top palay-producing province of Nueva Ecija of sufficient irrigation water from the Pantabangan Dam.

In a recent consultative meeting with farmer leaders and heads of the NIA plus other agencies attached to the Department of Agriculture (DA), Antonio Nangel, the department manager of the NIA-Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation Systems (UPRIIS) assured that Pantabangan Dam can sufficiently sustain the water requirements of the standing crop and can even accommodate the quick turnaround cropping or third cropping and “ratooning” farming.

Rice ratooning is the ability of standing crops to regenerate new tillers after harvest.  

In a report to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Nangel said the UPRIIS is strongly pushing for rice ratooning because it has low irrigation requirement, lower production cost, and higher yield per unit area in less time.

“The Pantabangan dam water level of 207 meters, as of Feb. 9 is still above the operation rule curve,” he said. “Given the 102,550 hectares we programmed this dry crop in 2010 and its total water requirement of 1,283.71 MCM until harvest time in April, Pantabangan Dam is still at the ideal or safe level of 194 meters. With this water elevation, UPRIIS can still program around 25,000 hectares for third cropping or Quick Turnaround (QTA) or ratooning or both at the same time.”

Present during the consultative meeting were DA Region 3 director Redentor Gatus and Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) director Ronilo Beronio, both of whom lauded the efforts of UPRIIS to mitigate the adverse effects of El Niño on rice production in Central Luzon.

Gatus assured farmers during the meeting that seed and fertilizer subsidies would be made available to those adopting the QTA, while Beronio said PhilRice is preparing flyers to disseminate information on rice ratooning.

The meeting was also attended by representatives from the National Food Authority (NFA), Land Bank of the Philippines, Bureau of Post Harvest and Research Extension (BPRE), National Seed Quality Control Service (NSQCS), DA officials at the local level, and federation presidents of Irrigators Associations (IA) comprising the Board of Directors of the UPRIIS Confederation of Farmer Irrigators Associations (UCFIA). 

UCFIA has 380 IAs as members within the service area of UPRIIS in Nueva Ecija, parts of Bulacan, Pampanga and Tarlac. 

It has 76,000 farmer-members who actively participate in the operation and management of irrigation systems covered by UPRIIS as well as in the collection of irrigation service fees.

The move of UPRIIS in programming 25,000 hectares for QTA and ratooning this year is supported by different intervention programs with farmers as direct beneficiaries. 

Owing to the well-observed procedure in water releases from Pantabangan dam during typhoons, the UPRIIS was able to program 100 percent of its firmed up service area equivalent to 102,550 hectares. 

By April or when the standing crops shall have been harvested, the dam elevation is projected at 194 meters.