First District Cong. Edgar Chatto is pushing for increased allocation for the agriculture and irrigation sectors in the 2024 national budget.
He voiced out this concern in the second regular meeting, last Feb. 8, 2023, of the House Committee on Visayas Development where the first district solon sits as vice chairman. The said committee is composed of some members of Congress belonging to the Visayas region and during this committee meeting, Chatto expressed concern about the report of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that rice self sufficiency in Bohol dropped to 86%.
The DA pointed out that the drop in rice sufficiency was due to climate conditions.
In this connection, Chatto wants to have programs in place in order to increase yield of rice per hectare. The solon also wants programs that will focus on increasing the production of alternative food staples like root crops, and rice substitutes.
The meeting, presided over by Leyte 2nd District Cong. Lolita Javier, focused on the presentation of the budget proposals, regional development plans and programs of the DA and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) for Fiscal Year 2024 covering regions 6, 7, and 8.
It is clear from the assessment of the DA that climate change has impacted food security and there is a need to focus on improving yield, now that climate change has presented that it has become a problem for agriculture.
Just last month, Chatto joined NIA administrator Engr. Eduardo Guillen in a stakeholders’ forum in Bohol that tackled efforts to strengthen the national irrigation system.
“It is also imperative, more than ever, to integrate climate change action not only to agricultural policies but across all sectors and in every governance level,” Chatto said.
The solon has been driving for a more climate change- sensitive budget for the country.
The House Committee on Climate Change, which Chatto chairs, had been calling for the mainstreaming of climate action in all policies and programs of national and local governments.
Chatto has been pushing for programs on climate change to place in the national government agenda including the issues on loss and damage.
To recall, in keeping with the strong push for climate justice, Chatto, earlier, presided over focus group discussions (FGD) on the issue of loss and damage in relation to climate change. The forum was held back on Jan. 30, 2023.
The Philippines is a country that is most at risk when it comes to climate change.
According to the World Risk Index 2022 report, released on September 2022, the Philippines is the most vulnerable country in terms of risk to climate change.
The index included assessment of the risk profiles of 193 countries in relation to climate change.
The information provides a wake-up call to Filipinos to consider the present situation as a climate emergency situation, and as such, everybody should start finding ways to adapt to climate change.
In the privilege speech delivered by Chatto in November 2022, he said that, “the vulnerability of the Philippines as well as other poor nations underscores the importance of climate justice: Rich nations and corporations must take responsibility for the adverse impacts of climate change. Such a responsibility includes raising the ambition for cutting carbon emissions and committing to finance that allows poor nations to deal with adverse climate impacts.”