Mitigating El Nino

Ike Señeres

SINCE we are all looking for ways and means to deal with the El Nino problem, I am quoting here the suggestions of Vicente “Sonny” Domingo who is the Chairman of the Kapisanan ng Magsasaka, Mangingisda at Mangagawa ng Pilipinas Inc. (Kammmpi). I have known Mr. Domingo for many decades. We were together in the old Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS). He is a real farmer and a certified agriculturist at that, so suffice it to say that he knows what he is talking about.
“l Nino is the lack of water from the atmosphere (due to climate change) that is usually stored in the soil after every rainfall and with proper agricultural practice becomes the basis for high or low yields. It is the lack of water that adversely affects the growth of plants specially grain crops which is the basic livelihood of 2/3 of the population or about 17 million grain farmers and 3 million coconut farmers with their families totaling 20 million.

“Water is the raw material of photosynthesis without which no plants will grow. It carries the essential elements of hydrogen and oxygen that carries the nutrients from the soil and deliver them to the growing cell of plants. After doing so in just a fracture of time, it escapes back into the atmosphere by transpiration to form clouds that brings back the rain. This is the climate cycle that nurtures plants and animals for survival.

“There is then a need for government to intervene properly and not use it to exploit the misery of its people especially the farmers that are most affected.

“Government with its limited manpower and financial resources must now appeal to the public to participate in water conservation and management to support standing crops (not those without crops) during the El Nino phenomenon that is now upon us this year and other years to come.

“Scarce government resources must now harness the public and provide the leadership to mitigate the ill effects of El Nino in agricultural production through a comprehensive project that will have immediate impact and not just for show. In previous years the public especially the farmers just hear about it but did not see it. In the first place, they were not asked to participate in any of its activities as if it was just a government problem.

“Government must not commit the mistake of just cutting the pie too thinly to mitigate El Nino and pass on the burden to local government units. And so the funds provided do not achieve the objective of mitigating El Nino and protecting the livelihood of the farmers especially those with standing crops and end up with no impact to those affected. It is then proposed that to avoid a repeat of this, there must be a focused program to be called Echo as follows;

“Establishment of a Philippine Map that is color coded showing (1) the most affected areas. This is where most government funds should be allocated, (2) the moderately affected area. This is where foreign assisted funds be allocated and (3) the lightly affected area. This is where LGU funds be allocated

“Create a Green Army that will do the following for the next 60 days: (1) clean up and fix all existing irrigation canals and (2) reconstruct irrigation systems destroyed by calamities.

“Harvest water by constructing earth dams where possible to regenerate the aquifer for shallow water pump irrigation: (1) establish pool size water impounding areas using the Green Army. Where no earth moving machines are available issue using pick mattocks and shovel and employ Water Harvest Brigades and (2) allocate an El Nino day every week for high school students and make them participate to also harvest rain water in their respective communities through appropriate technologies and provide an award for the best appropriate technology in harvesting rain water.

“Orient most affected areas on the detrimental effects of El Nino to the community and the lives of each person by way of orientation and enlist volunteers to the above mention activities to save on government funds and enlist privately initiated El Nino mitigating infra structures.

“Establish through an Executive Order an El Nino Commission with most of the Commissioners coming from the small farmers. The Commission then develops a priority bill to institutionalize Echo and provide the necessary funds needed to be implemented every year and doubled when there is a declaration that El Nino is forthcoming.

“El Nino is a regular phenomenon that adversely affects the livelihood and lives of the disadvantage sector requires a regular program with the above proposed mitigating steps that could be implemented within 60 days and extended to 120 days each year starting September 30.”

Before we get too busy in mitigating the effects of El Nino, let us not forget that it is actually just an effect of climate change. With God’s grace and a lot of hard work, we may succeed in the mitigation, but that does not mean that we have already solved its cause. For that matter, El Nino actually just reduces the supply of water, but we should not forget that we are already having shortages of water, even without El Nino. I sad that to stress the fact that long after El Nino is over, we should still continue to deal with the problem of water shortages.

And before we lose track of the problem, El Nino is not just the problem of the farmers. It is the problem of fishermen too, because the warming of the ocean floor also causes the decline of fish supplies. It is also the problem of consumers, because if the farmers could not grow enough food and if the fishermen could not catch enough fish, we would not have enough to eat. The more it is the problem of consumers, because the shortage of water does not only cause problems in irrigation, it also causes problems in our water supply. That would be a grim scenario, not having food to cook, and even if we had some food to cook, we would not have water to cook it with.

It is not only the rice farmers that need irrigation water. All other crops need water, and even the poultry and livestock farmers need water too. We know that El Nino now causes problems in the supply of irrigation water, but long after the problem of El Nino is gone, we should change the paradigm in the distribution of water to not only include rice farmers, but also all the other farmers who are planting other crops, as well as the poultry and livestock farmers. And while we are on this subject, we should also change the paradigm of irrigation water distribution, from the antiquated canal type ditches, to the PVC pipes. And why not?

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