two back to back storms have ruined Philippine food crops

[ensho]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/KJ22Ae01.html


Philippine farmers feel the pinch

(its more like a machete attack)


-snip tells of the difficulty of feeding people-

CAR encompasses most of the areas within the Cordillera Central mountain range of Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines. Blessed with fertile soil and cool weather, farming is one of the region's key industries.

The farm folk of Cordillera supply vegetables and mountain-grown rice and coffee to both local and international markets.

But the back-to-back typhoons - Ketsana and Parma - that swept through the country in late September and early October changed the fortunes not only of the Cordillera but other key food-producing provinces of Luzon.

-snip-

Philippine agriculture officials said the agriculture sector suffered the most from the two cyclones. They placed the total damage to agriculture and fisheries wrought by the two typhoons at 18.5 billion pesos (US$396 million). The amount covers lost crops, fish and livestock, the damaged irrigation facilities and 200,000 hectares of submerged land.

The impact of the two typhoons on Luzon was so huge that it forced Philippine Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to downscale the country's farm growth rate to between 0.5% and 1.5% from the previous target of 3%. Luzon accounts for roughly 50% of the country's total farm output.

The worse part is that hunger and poverty now persist in what is supposed to be the country's food basket. The once abundant farmlands are now heavily damaged and may never be rehabilitated, depriving farmers of their main source of food and livelihood.

In an economic forum held last week, Yap said that the two typhoons left more than 50,000 farmer families in Luzon "in a state of financial ruin, hunger and severe poverty".
-snip-
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bad news, wishing them well