‘Albay farmers see higher palay yield due to irrigation project’

AGRARIAN reform al bay province said their palay yield doubled to 120 cavans per hectare from 60 cavans.

The farmers attributed this to the P11.6-million Manawan Communal Irrigation System (CIS) that irrigates over 60 hectares of rice lands in Barangay Banawan and Quinartilan in Camalig town.

The CIS, with its newly concreted 2.8-kilometer line canals, is now providing a steady supply of irrigation water from the Malobago river in Guinobatan, Albay, allowing the 211 farmer-beneficiaries and other palay planters to make more cropping a year to produce rice.

Because of the project, department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Bicol Regional Director Rodrigo Realubit said farmers could now expect continued higher farm yield sand overshoot their previous average yield of 60 cavans per hectare per cropping season.

Farmers in the said barangays used to cultivate palay only twice a year. Rice fields were irrigated from improvised earth canals with limited areas being reached by irrigation water.

Rio Olavario, who farms a 1.5-hectare rice land in Barangay Manawan, said: “Our situation was difficult at that time since I was only producing 15 to 20 cavans per hectare every harvest. Due to a shortage of water, I can only plant once or twice each year.”

However, with these newly concreted irrigation canals, Olavario said wider tracks of rice land could now be reached with sufficient water.

She said she had already harvested between 100 to 120 cavans during the last cropping season.

Dante O. Nuñez, president of the Manawan Irrigators’ Association also said: “this time, farmers here could now maximize their production, particularly in ricefields previously not available to irrigation water, paving the way to increasing their farm incomes.”

He said that so far, “I have already harvested up to 100 cavans from my 1-hectare farm, which is double compared to my previous harvests.”

“We are very grateful to DAR for financing the repairs of the damaged dam and the upgrading of the line canals. We had to get up at two a.m. to irrigate our farms back then. But now, we have a nearly unlimited supply of irrigation water,” he said in Filipino.

According to Nuñez, the dam was damaged by a succession of typhoons that hit the Bicol Region in recent years, resulting in a decrease in palay yields and leaving farmers devastated.

The National Irrigation Administration undertook the rehabilitation works of the Manawan CIS under the support services component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

The project, which was completed on July 16, 2021, is designed to provide agrarian reform farming communities with infrastructure facilities to boost the production and income of agrarian reform beneficiaries.