LINGAYEN—Most farmers in Pangasinan have already adopted a new rice planting calendar starting this year. Reason? Climate change!

Provincial Agriculturist Dalisay Moya said farmers are either delaying or advancing their planting schedules in order to save their crops from devastation during the rain/flood season.

Moya said the move could minimize crop losses normally wrought by heavy rains and floods that have adversely affected lives of farmers over the years.

She said the new planting calendar was already started in Sta. Barbara by farmers who already advanced their rice planting.

She said in the old planting calendar, farmers simultaneously plant rice during the month of June and the flood season normally starts from July to August and even up to September.

Moya said she personally endorsed the new rice planting calendar because due to climate change, rains sometimes come late during the wet season and rains are now experienced during the dry season.

Those who delay their rice planting begin in September or October, skipping the flood season from July to August.

The new planting calendar will ensure that before the flood season sets in, farmers especially those in Sta. Barbara who advanced their rice planting, will already be harvesting before the floods come in.

Moya, however, pointed out the new planting schedule is ideal in places where irrigation is available.

She said the average harvest in irrigated rice lands in Pangasinan today is from 4.3 to five metric tons per hectare while it is lower than 4.3 metric tons per hectare in rainfed areas.

“Mababa talaga ang rice harvest sa mga rainfed areas. The availability of irrigation water is the limiting factor,” she added.

Tagged by Moya as the biggest rice producing area in Pangasinan is the eastern part of the province where the big irrigation projects of the National Irrigation Administration are situated. (Leonardo Micua)

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