CABANATUAN CITY – Some 12,000 farmers from Nueva Ecija and some towns in Central Luzon, who have been receiving irrigation supply from the giant Pantabangan Dam, will be exempted from irrigation service fees (ISFs).
This after their farmlands were devastated by typhoons Pedring and Quiel two months ago, the National Irrigation Administration announced.
Josephine Salazar, operations manager of the NIA’s Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation Systems which operates the Pantabangan Dam, said the farmers will be granted the ISF payment exemptions following the two-month validation conducted by the agency.
It disclosed that a total of 15,000 hectares out of its service area of 104,000 hectares were severely damaged by the twin typhoons.
Earlier, NIA administrator Antonio Nangel voiced support to a request of local officials in Nueva Ecija to exempt local farmers from paying the ISFs during the cropping season, as their lands were hit hard by calamities.
The request was made by Gov. Aurelio Umali, Vice Gov. Jose Gay Padiernos and the provincial chapter of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines led by its president, Peñaranda Mayor Ferdinand Abesamis.
The mayor noted that the twin typhoons left P2 billion worth of palay destroyed.
Umali said that the losses suffered by local farmers will surely affect the food security situation in the entire country.
A resolution passed by the SP chaired by Padiernos said the “damage will surely burden the farmers and their families who pay an average of 2.5 cavans and 3.5 cavans of palay per hectare” during the rainy and dry season, respectively for irrigation water provided by NIA through the Pantabangan Dam.
But Salazar said that those who will be exempted are farmers with average yields of 40 cavans and below and not those above the ceiling provided by NIA.
“That’s our standing policy,” she said, adding that if those above the 40-cavans ceiling are exempted, this will surely affect the operations of UPRIIS particularly in the maintenance of irrigation facilities and the water delivery.
She said the 15,000 farmers who will be exempted translate into around P3 million worth of ISFs which could have been utilized for irrigation canal maintenance and the fuel requirements of UPRIIS.
UPRIIS services the 27 towns and five cities of the province, Candaba in Pampanga and San Miguel and San Ildefonso in Bulacan involving 88,000 farmers.
