HEAVY rains came before the end of January 29 and ended more than five hours later at the dawn of January 30. It was a rude awakening for more than 15,300 tobacco farmers, said Cesar Sambrana, deputy administrator for operations of the National Tobacco Administration.
That makes up almost half of all the tobacco farmers in the country. Forty-six-year-old Francisca Raquepo of San Emilio planted Virginia Tobacco in their half-hectare homestead last November and woke up on January 30 with her crops already soaked in water. After a day, she literally saw her year’s income wilt like the drooping tobacco leaves.
“We borrowed money and hoped we could pay after March. Now we’re twice poorer than when we started,” she said. “It took a long time for me to convince myself to plant tobacco and then this happens,” said Gerry Barber from Pilar, Abra.
In industry parlance, drooping leaves are called “flopped” leaves. Flopped leaves flooded the social media pages of Ilocanos at the start of February. It was indeed a perfect storm that hit them. “Usually, farmers start planting tobacco in October but Tropical Storm Maring hit us that month,” said Deputy Speaker Kristine Singson Meehan. That storm caused more than P500 million damage to agriculture at
that time. But the rains that came at the end of January were equally devastating. Meehan said that in her congressional district, which incidentally is the top producer of Virginia Tobacco in the country, 5,706 farmers cultivating 2,677 hectares of tobacco land were affected by the freak rains. That translated to a value of P255.655 million in damages, she added. According to Sambrana, the total damage in Regions I, II and the Cordilleras amounted to half a billion pesos.
“That is equivalent to five million kilos (of Virginia Tobacco),” he said. Many were not able to plant again because of the lack of seeds, he added.
Even as Meehan and Sambrano were meeting the affected tobacco farmers at the Candon City Hall last February 23, 87-year-old Virgilio Torres was already curing his harvested tobacco in his private barn in Tablac, Candon City at that time. “We were lucky,” said his daughter-in-law Verlina Rodriguez in Ilocano.
“Our crops were at a higher elevation.” But their luck may not even be enough.
According to Sta. Maria, Ilocos Sur Councilor Benny Dagdag, more than 90 percent of those recently flue-cured tobacco leaves in his municipality were already classified as rejects. The heavy rains caused nitrogen to leach out of the soil, causing the surviving leaves to turn yellow. The freak rains caused the roots in many of the surviving tobacco to suffocate when the soil was filled with water. The roots died and began to rot. Fertilizers would have cut the damage if applied on time. But the problem, according to Rep. Meehan, was that the price of fertilizers also increased. Firewood for curing tobacco also became more expensive, she said. To salvage the remaining tobacco plants, Meehan met up with the NTA
and the tobacco farmers groups in her province. She said that among the strategies they thought of were providing farmers with knapsack sprayers for the application of biostimulants and foliar fertilizer to sustain the growth and development of the surviving tobacco plants.
About 3,200 of these sprayers were distributed last February 23 at the Candon City Hall. Meehan said that the distribution of biostimulants and fertilizers will follow. They also set up the chicken layer assistance program and the distribution of vegetable seeds to the affected farmers. Ladylyn Ducusin, president of Puso (Progress, Unity and Socialization) Credit Cooperative, composed mostly of farmers’ wives, said that among the projects they provided to their farmers were designed to help those affected
by crop failures. “In San Emilio, we are handing over cattle and in Banayoyo and Burgos, we are distributing goats. In Candon City, we are already in Round 2 of that after we gave 200 goats to 100 recipients. The recipients are now giving back the kids of these goats. And in Round 2, we are giving one goat to one recipient,” she said.
Ducusin also said that they are giving training for salting and curing fishto the coastal town of Santa while they are training housewives in Suyo and Sigay on ways to ferment and pickle upland vegetables.
When Puso started in October 2019, they had 50 members per municipality, but now there are even 500 members in one town, Ducusin said. Provincial officials were also asked to intercede for and on behalf of
tobacco farmers who had availed of production loans from private tobacco companies for the latter to condone a part of their loans. Former Rep. Eric D. Singson, who is now running as Candon City mayor, said that the tobacco farmers needed their soft loans Ilocos Sur Board Member Mildred Elaydo at the Candon City Hall said that her resolution appealing to the NTA, United Leaf Philippines Inc., and other lending institutions to grant a moratorium on the soft loans of the affected tobacco farmers was unanimously approved by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan last February 15.
The NTA implemented the restructuring of the production assistance given to the affected farmers, in addition to the livelihood assistance given to more than 4,000 affected farmers through the Gulayan at Manukan sa Barangay project. “In addition, we plan to release an emergency cash assistance to the
affected farmers, with the approval of the NTA Governing Board,” NTA Administrator Robert Victor Seares Jr. said. Going beyond, Meehan had a consultation with NTA and private companies to prevent another “lost season” for tobacco growers. She said that they came out with the following precautionary and remedial measures:
- Cultural management practices of all tobacco types
- Package of Technology (POT) through the use of flood-resistant and
- High-yielding varieties
- More efficient tillage operations like plowing at a depth of eight to ten inches
- Instead of the usual practice of six inches depth and the adoption of the
- Ridge-type planting instead of the furrow method and the
- Construction of canals to drain excess water during heavy rains
I really cried when I saw my fields,” said Francisca Raquepo. But then I remembered this happened to us about 12 years ago,” she added. “And we persevered and the next year we earned enough to expand our farm,” Raquepo said.