Davao City agri suspects more areas affected by rat infestation

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (PNA) -- The City Agriculture Office (CAO) in Davao suspected that more areas in Paquibato district are affected by rat infestation aside from the recently reported eight barangays.

CAO head Leonardo Avila III said they still need to validate the report but interventions were already given to the earlier eight barangays where farm crops were attacked by rodents. The affected areas were already declared under state of calamity by Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio as authorized by the city council.

Avila said they have allocated more than P50 million as assistance and support to affected farmers. However, he said that they need to focus and give importance to educating and training the members of the community as to how to control and eliminate rats in their villages.

"It is important that the villagers would know basic rodent management ;thus, we have designated technicians to conduct the training," he said.

As to the immediate response of eliminating the rats, Avila said chemicals like Zinc Phospide were already administered in the area; also, the blanketing of colony of the rats was done. About 2,300 hectares of farmland or 60 percent of the farms in Paquibato district has been affected  by this pestilence, damaging corn crops, banana, camote, gabi and others.

The CAO head added that they will adopt the food for work program scheme depending on the size of the area . For instance, below one hectare is equivalent to half-sack of corn seeds and the quantity increases depending on the size of the farm.

He said they will be adopting four programs from fund assistance, food for work, control and rehabilitation.

"Our approach must be comprehensive especially in the control and elimination of rodents," he said.

Source: manila bulletin 

REACTION:

            One of our basic needs is food. Davao City is well known to have a abundant resources like fruits, vegetables, corns and crops. Although we are abundant we still have to take care of these resources, because we don’t know what will happen in the near future. As our mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio heard about this report, she had order an action to the said problem. If she had not put a action to this problem, We people here in Davao City will still be affected. Supplies of Vegetables, crops will be short and will lead to a Food Supply Shortage, and sooner the prices of these said crops will increase because of the low supply, and still people will be affected of the increase of price. It is good that interventions to solve the problems of the farmers was given immediately. Educating the people of the said area will help to have proper maintenance of crops.