The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the impact of El Niño needs to be managed by diversifying crops and adjusting production cycles, with the aim of keeping Philippine agricultural output stable even as dry spells and droughts take hold.

Dulce Carandang, Assistant FAO Representative to the Philippines, told a briefing that the objective was to achieve a measure of continuity in agricultural production even when the weather pattern brings dry spells and droughts.

El Niño, the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate cycle, is typically associated with below-normal rainfall in the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia, straining water supplies and rain-fed farmland. Such swings recur every two to seven years, and with agriculture among the country's largest employers and the source of its domestic food supply, the difference between a steady harvest and a drought-hit one is felt well beyond the farm. The FAO, the United Nations agency headquartered in Rome that works on food security and agriculture, has long promoted climate-resilient farming practices as a way for governments to safeguard harvests against such swings.

Asked about shifting production cycles, Ms. Carandang said the Department of Agriculture (DA) has been aiding farmers in factoring projected dry spells into their planting and harvest schedules.

"Farmers are creative and resilient. They can read the weather and they know what needs to be done," Ms. Carandang said.

She also cited the need for farmers to have access to climate science in aid of taking informed action.

Ms. Carandang highlighted the risk of not diversifying during droughts, particularly when farmers have no crops resistant to dry conditions to fall back on. Mono-cropping — planting a single crop season after season — concentrates that exposure in one harvest, while spreading fields across drought-tolerant varieties distributes the risk instead.

"With reliance on mono-cropping, there's a higher risk that things will be problematic especially with the situation we're facing with El Niño," she said.

According to Ms. Carandang, secure levels of groundwater and healthy soil conditions are other factors farmers must consider.

"Drought isn't just about the lack of rain. We also need to look at the state of our soil, the health of our groundwater," she added.

The markers to watch as El Niño conditions persist are the ones Ms. Carandang and the DA pointed to: whether planting and harvest calendars shift ahead of projected dry spells, how widely farmers can tap climate science for their decisions, and how groundwater and soil conditions hold up through the dry months.

— Maria Mikaela H. Tormon

Source: BusinessWorld