Agri sector damage from ''Odette'' hits P8 billion
The Department of Agriculture, in its Tuesday evening report, said damage to the farm sector from Typhoon ''Odette'' reached P 8 billion, surpassing the presentation by its secretary Monday night to President Rodrigo Duterte.
This affected 113, 749 farmers and fishers with volume of production loss at 171, 222 metric tons and 341, 280 hectares.
During the taped Talk to The People Monday night, Agriculture Secretary William Dar said damage and losses to the farm sector from Typhoon ''Odette'' was almost P6 billion and ''still counting.''
Dar said ''Odette'' has affected nearly 62,000 farmers and fishers. The total area affected is more than 70,000 hectares, he added.
''If you translate this into volume of loss in terms of food metric tons, that's already almost 105,000,'' said Dar.
By commodity, hardest hit is the fishery sector followed by rice and the third one is coconut, said Dar.
Others would include agricultural infrastructure, corn, livestock, high-value crops, and other machineries: 13.7 percent.
But Dar said total production loss of rice this year, to date, is almost 700,000 metric tons. This is 3.4 percent of the 20.3 million metric tons target harvest this year, he added.
Dar said the DA advised farmers and fisherfolk to harvest matured produce and this has resulted in savings of about P655 million. DMS
