Asian research project on El Niño on

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna — An Asian research project on the impact of the El Niño phenomenon on major cereal crops is in the pipeline.

The project’s work plan and time schedule were discussed by scientists from 11 Asian countries at a recent workshop here.

Titled “The Impacts of El Niño, Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Events on Cereal Production, Area, and Field in Asia”, the forum was jointly sponsored by the Los Baños-based, government-hosted Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-United Nations-Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO).

SEARCA is one of the 19 “centers of excellence” of SEAMEO, an inter government treaty organization founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Sotheast Asian nations in the fields of education, science, culture.

The scientific gathering was the “inception workshop” of the “FAO-SEARCA Research Study on the Impacts of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Events on Cereal Production, Area, and field in Asia”. Another workshop will be held later.

Aside from the workshops, the FAO-SEARCA project will fund a research and publish monographs on the impacts of ENSO events on cereal (rice, wheat, and maize) production, area, and yield in 10 to 12 Asian countries.

The research will be done by SEARCA with collaborating researchers. To be covered are Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The rationale behind the research project is that climate change is likely to increase the frequency of extreme weather events, and ENSO is probably the most important extreme event that effects the agriculture sector.

Speaking at the workshop, SEARCA Director Gil C. Saguiguit Jr. pointed out: “The agriculture sector has never been embattled with weather-related problems as it has ever the past recent decades.”

Numerous studies and research data indicate that increasing unpredictability of weather and changing climate patterns as exemplified by extreme events such as El Niño and La Niña are wreaking havoc on agricultural production.

“As we are aware, the significant drop in agricultural production in turn affects the food supply and subsequently results in an escalation of food prices,” Dr. Saguiguit stated.

During the workshop, country reports were presented by representatives of the nations covered by the Asia-wide project.

On the whole, the conference discussed the choice of appropriate locational disaggregation (province, region) at which to conduct the analysis on production, area, and yield of the three main agricultural cereal crops in Asia.

It also tackled the availability of rainfall data and graphed seasonal (as opposed to annual) production, area, and yield of rice, wheat, and maize for as long a time as possible.