Agricultural analysts must be thankful for El Niño. After all, it makes their job easier. When output of farm crops and fisheries fall during the period of an El Niño onslaught, it was always easier to put the blame on the phenomenon.

A new El Niño weather aberration has revisited the country since the third quarter of 2002. And indeed, as agriculture statistics come out, analysts point fingers once more to their favorite suspect – never mind that it is less menacing this time around.

Recalling El Niño
El Niño is defined as warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean that have large-scale impacts not only on ocean processes but also on global weather patterns. Experts say the resultant weather disturbance tends to occur at an average interval of three to five years and typically lasts for a year. The phenomenon was named after the Spanish word for little boy or Christ child (Niño) as its effects escalate in December, the month of Christ’s birth.

Originally recognized by fishermen off the coast of South America in the 17th century as unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean, El Niño episodes – characterized by more difficult fishing - were then documented as harsh times for the villages due to lack of food. In contemporary times, El Niño is better known as a weather phenomenon characterized by pro-longed drought in affected areas.

Previous El Niño episode
The last episode of El Niño in 1997-1998 was quite severe, largely affecting many countries in the world. The Philippines experienced one of its harshest droughts in history, adversely affecting agricultural production and starving farmers’ families in the process.

A mild recurrence
Fortunately, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) does not see a repeat of the 1997-1998 kind of El Niño, a landmark period of hunger and poverty for the country’s farming regions.
Indications from foreign weather agencies show that this year’s El Niño will be comparable, instead, to that of the less harsh 1987-1988 episode when the agriculture sector managed to grow by 3.2% versus the 1997-1998 episode’s recorded contraction of 6.6%. Although the government has rung the alarm as early as the first quarter of last year, the El Niño which started in the third quarter of 2002 is expected to be a milder episode.

Nevertheless, the weak dry spell is bound to effect a slowdown, if not decline in farm production.

Government preparations
Adopting the motto of “better prepared than sorry,” the Arroyo administration, through the Department of Agriculture, drafted an action plan to cushion the drought’s impact. Funding has been reportedly pooled from the realigned budget of the National Irrigation Authority and pledges from congressmen. The bulk of the budget will rehabilitate the major irrigation systems, finance the setup of shallow tube wells and smaller water-impounding facilities as well as cloud seeding.

Forecast: Slowdown
Palay (rice) production, largely dependent on water for sustenance from its germination till it is about to be harvested, is always greatly affected by drought as proven by the 24% drop in rice production during the 1997-1998 El Niño. Unfortunately, rice is the country’s number one table fare, accounting for about 38% of the value of agricultural crops and 19% of the whole agriculture sector. However, although the new El Niño has supposedly set in as early as third quarter of 2002, palay output for last year still managed to top the 2001 harvest by 2.4% to continue the steady uptrend in the country’s palay production which also reached an all-time high of 13.3 million metric tons last year.

With the brunt of the 2002-2003 episode happening this year, the Makati Business Club forecasts a slowdown in palay production to a slim 1.5% increase to 13.5 million metric tons this year. Growth will be due to the government’s preparations for the drought episode which include promotion of the use of better-yielding rice seeds.

Coconut, which ranked next to palay in terms of value of production and accounted for about 6% of agricultural output in 2002, is also one commodity susceptible to prolonged dry spells. In the 1997-98 El Niño, coconut production (including copra) – then about 5% of agricultural output – was down by 12.9%. Another major crop susceptible to El Niño is corn, which is irrigation-dependent, especially in its early stages of growth. El Niño brought down corn output in 1998 by 11.8%. Perhaps banana will also experience output decline like its experience in 1998. Palay, coconut, corn and banana altogether easily account for about one-third of total agricultural output.

Despite the livestock and poultry subsectors’ forecasted steady growth rates and a very insignificant dip in volume of fish catch in some areas, MBC forecasts a slowdown in the overall performance of the agriculture sector to 2.9% from last year’s 3.5%. This is largely a result of the expected slowdown in at least four of the country’s major crops. It could be worse, but the good news is that experts see all indications really pointing to a less menacing El Niño this year with its soft effects further mitigated by the government’s early and proactive intervention.