Typhoon causes huge damage to Philippine agriculture sector

Philippine agriculture sector has incurred at least 5.9 billion pesos (128.01 million U.S. dollars) damage due to typhoon Koppu, locally named as Lando, a senior government official said Tuesday.

Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Emerson Palad said the typhoon pummeled about 277,060 hectares of rich agricultural lands in northern regions of Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon and Cordillera.

"Through partial field validation, the DA estimates that the regions have already incurred a production loss of 386,000 metric tons," he said.

Of the total, palay accounts for the largest production loss of about 360,000 metric tons, equivalent to 5.3 billion pesos.

Corn and high value crops recorded production losses of 5,600 metric tons and 21,800 metric tons, respectively. These figures are equivalent to 84.5 million pesos (1.83 million U.S. dollars) losses for corn and 528.9 million pesos (11.48 million U.S. dollars) losses for high value crops.

Palad said DA has already given a directive to its regional offices and units to release prepositioned bags of rice and corn for immediate replanting of damaged farms. Endit