Government allots P7B for 27 irrigation projects

The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) is spending P7 billion this year for 27 priority irrigation projects that would involve putting up new systems as well as upgrading and rehabilitating existing facilities.

Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. who is the concurrent chairman of NIA said these new irrigation projects will irrigate 25,575 hectares (has.) of new farm lands while the repair of existing facilities will provide water to an additional 74,866 additional has in 2003.

Lorenzo said the amount will enable NIA to complete this year several foreign-and locally funded projects with a combined service area of 44,092 has., which will directly benefit 40,117 farmers and boost their crop production.

Scheduled for completion this year is the long-delayed Malitubog-Maridagao irrigation project in Pikit, North Cotabato, a P2.5-billion venture partly funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and designed to irrigate some 10,840 has. that will benefit 4,550 farmers.

The project remains unfinished largely because hostilities between government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front continue, disrupting peace and order in the area, he said.

The DA chief said two other foreign-assisted projects set to be finished this year are the Tarlac groundwater irrigation system in Central Luzon and the Lower Agusan development project in Caraga.

Also expected to be completed are two locally funded undertakings – the Addalam river irrigation project and the Apayao-Abulog irrigation system improvement project in Cordillera.

Lorenzo said while the government has already infused billions of pesos in irrigation projects in the past, much more had to be done considering that today, only 44 percent of some 3.1 million has. of potential irrigable area had been developed.

Lorenzo prodded NIA to increase its targets and raise funding for its projects by seeking joint venture arrangements with private sector groups and local water associations.

In 2002, NIA implemented 26 irrigation projects and was instrumental in helping the agriculture sector grow by over three percent because it was able to generate new irrigated areas totaling over 28,000 has and rehabilitated close to 270,000 has.

The agency also claimed that it helped create 80,100 jobs, of which 35,700 were related to the construction of new irrigation projects while 44,400 in the rehabilitation of existing facilities.