Piñol’s ambitious solar irrigation system faces financial setback

After getting assurance from President Rodrigo Duterte regarding its funding, the ambitious solar-powered irrigation project of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol is now facing financial setback.

In August, Piñol failed to get his desired 2019 budget for his agency but he said he was assured by no less than Duterte of massive funds to bankroll the Department of Agriculture's (DA) SolarPowered Irrigation Systems (SPIS) program, which aims to provide water to at least 500,000 hectares of farms over the remaining four years of the current administration.

Based on Piñol's earlier "impromptu" computation, the cost of building SPIS covering 500,000 hectares of land would amount to 143.7 billion.

This, since each SPIS unit, which has a capacity to irrigate 80 hectares, would cost around 17 million to set up. The target is to build 6,250 of this facility.

The commitment was during the 28th Cabinet Meeting.

Months later, Piñol is seeking farmers' help in convincing the Congress to inject more funds to the program.

In a couple of Facebook posts, the DA chief has repetitively said that for 2019, DA was only given funds enough to build 11 units of SPIS.

This would mean slowing down the program, which started in March 2017.

"For farmers who have areas which they believe are suitable to the SPIS, we ask them to help us get funding for the project by talking to their Congressmen and asking them to lobby for the allocation of funds for the SPIS program of the DA," Piñol said.

"This needs to be done because many of our budget planners still do not appreciate the impact of the SPIS on greater agricultural productivity," he added.

This week, the DA commissioned the fourth unit of the SPIS in the Central Mindanao University (CMU) compound in Musuan, Maramag, Bukidnon Province.

Built at a cost of 18.2 million and completed in a period of 10 months, the CMU SPIS is designed to irrigate 66 hectares of farms.

Piñol emphasized that SPIS is a lot cheaper compared to conventional water systems since the development cost per hectare is only about 1120,000. This is lower compared to that of being built by National Irrigation Administration (NIA) which the DA chief said is around 1450,000.