Philippines: Continuous rains affect garlic production in Basco

The continuous rains from late October to December have caused damages to garlic production of Basco farmers, who delayed their planting to November for the first time, expecting that by then, the continuous rains would have stopped. Garlic producer Marlin Salvador said that they risked planting in mid-November but their garlic seeds were swept by heavy rains to the edges of the farm. Severino Villarta, municipal agricultural technologist said that Ivatans have tested and proven their ancestors’ garlic planting tradition of September, October, November to December and no other planting season worked out, however, this is the first time that continuous rains hit Batanes.

Villarta said in his visitation to garlic fields, those planted in September were saved and those planted in mid December are growing better than those planted in November because farmers anticipated continuous rain in December, so they prepared canals within the farm to provide passage of excess water brought by continuous rains.

The municipal agricultural technologist said they are assessing the exact number of affected garlic producers for possible assistance from the Department of Agriculture-Island Agricultural Research Outreach Station (DA-IAROS). Villarta also said that the DA-IAROS usually source out planting materials from outside Luzon and the sourcing out of garlic seeds assistance would be sometime in July-August which is timely for September in next years’ planting season.

Source: pia.gov.ph