Bohol rice fields drying up

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines –  Dry spell had affected farmers in the towns of Pilar, Carmen, Mabini, Ubay and Guindulman in Bohol as their rice fields started to show some cracks, and that grassfires erupted due to extreme heat.

Barangay Chairman Edgar Tumanda of Minol in Mabini confirmed this situation saying that the heat had even set the palay on fire, causing considerable losses on the farmer’s investment and inputs for this season.

Farmers relied on rainfall as their source of water, and they are now working on measures to stabilize their waterworks system and the irrigation system that will reach to the rice fields in the barangay, Tumanda said, adding that rivers and deep wells also started to dry up.

Village residents have started conserving water for the remaining supply to last until the end of the dry spell which could be about three months away, he said.

The National Irrigation Administration-Region 7 office here is now closely monitoring the water level in dams, as the continuing decline of rainfall over the past weeks had caused the water level at Malinao Dam in Pilar to a critical level.

Personnel of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist were also monitoring the rainfall, saying they would request for another cloud seeding operations to save the remaining palay in the affected areas.