Rehab of irrigation systems done by Q2 — NIA

The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) expects to complete before the end of the second quarter the rehabilitation of critical national and communal irrigation systems to support efforts to increase rice production this year.

Agriculture Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban, who is concurrent chairman of NIA, said more than P500 million was recently released to 115 field offices of the agency, making total releases at the level of P1.96 billion out of the P2.3 billion earmarked for the rehabilitation program.

"The program is going full blast nationwide and we are confident the job will be completed on time so that we could take advantage of the summer rains brought about by the La Nina phenomenon," he said.

With the additional P500 million, NIA should be able to restore the productiveness of some 12,475 hectares of presently unserved agricultural lands benefiting about 21,500 farmers while creating 151,600 jobs for commissioned contracts with irrigators’ associations. Out of previous funds disbursed, NIA claimed it had restored irrigated water to 21,703 hectares. The NIA is targeting to restore irrigation in at least 90,000 hectares to achieve the government’s targeted rice production for 2006.

"One factor why the country fell short of its previous annual rice production target was the lack of good irrigation system," said Panganiban.

NIA data show that of the total 3.126 million hectares of rice lands nationwide, only 44.84 percent or 1.402 million hectares have functioning irrigation systems while about 1.724 million hectares have either defective irrigation systems or rely primarily on rainwater for their rice planting activities.

With an improved irrigation network, it is hoped that government will be able to showcase the gains of pursuing its hybrid rice production program. Hybrid rice planting can yield as much as six metric tons per hectare, but only if there is an efficient irrigation system.

"A big factor in the previous years’ failures to produce enough rice to meet the country’s growing rice requirements is that more than half of the irrigation systems built couldn’t be used during the planting season because so many of them have deteriorated due to lack of money for operation and maintenance especially when the communal irrigation systems were devolved to the local government units," said NIA director Baltazar Usis.

He explained that the deteriorating conditions of existing irrigation systems is being caused by the lack of funds for operation and maintenance (O & M). The government only provides P1,126 per hectare for O&M, thus, there is a huge discrepancy of P1, 274 per hectare from the required ideal O&M budget of P2,400 per hectare.

On a larger scale, the NIA said it would embark on an ambitious P25-billion, three-year program starting this year to rehabilitate the country’s major national and communal irrigation systems to support government’s goal of achieving self-sufficiency in rice by 2009.