BY DAVE SUAN ALBARADO
Rice and corn fields in Bohol are drying up as El Niño, compounded by the Southwest Monsoon, delays planting and squeezes water supplies, prompting provincial officials to push for expanded cloud seeding operations amidst warnings that the province’s food security could be at risk.
Assistant Provincial Agriculturist Larry M. Pamugas said newly planted rice and crops still in their early growth stages are especially vulnerable due to the lack of water, threatening farmers’ livelihoods.
He said the Provincial Government of Bohol is determined to carry out cloud seeding operations as soon as possible to help farms and livestock and protect residents from the effects of El Niño.
The Sangguniang Panlalawigan has received resolutions from irrigators’ associations and municipal governments requesting the operations, and is expected to pass its own resolution asking the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) for funding.
Pamugas said the provincial government has set aside P5 million pesos for the effort through the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, though additional funding will be needed for further operations.
The state weather bureau PAG-ASA has forecast that El Niño conditions could persist into the first quarter of 2027.
Provincial Rice Coordinator Maricel Barloso said the dry spell is already being felt in rainfed rice fields that depend solely on rainfall, which account for more than half of the province’s rice area.
Bohol has a total rice area of 53,887.06 hectares, including 28,464.78 hectares of rainfed land, 24,928.04 hectares of irrigated land and six hectares of upland rice areas.
As of the latest monitoring, only 18,707 hectares, or 34.72%, of that total had been planted.
A separate assessment from the Office of the Provincial Agriculture found the shortfall even more pronounced by July, when just 12,798 hectares, or 23.76% of the province’s 53,884.72-hectare rice area, had been planted, leaving more than three-quarters of the land unplanted. Corn planting also lagged, with only 1,011.66 hectares, or 16.38% of the potential corn area, planted by June.
The National Irrigation Administration reported falling water levels at irrigation dams, with particularly low levels at Capayas, Talibon, Benliw and Ilaya.
Officials warned that continued rain shortages could delay planting further, reduce harvests and affect both food supply and farmers’ income.
The BSWM has allocated P4.239 million pesos for 36 flight hours of cloud seeding in Bohol, though officials cautioned the funding may not be enough if dry conditions persist.
The Sangguniang Panlalawigan’s Committee on Agriculture has pushed for a joint area assessment alongside cloud seeding to boost rainfall and water supply for agriculture, and has recommended seeking additional funding for operations in 2026 and 2027 to avert a bigger blow to the province’s agriculture, irrigation and food security.
The impact is already visible on the ground in Carmen town, where farmers in barangays Buenavista and Katipunan say their rice crops may be beyond saving.
One farmer from Buenavista said he began planting in July during the rains, but the water supply quickly dried up after weeks of continuous heat.
“We planted right after the July rains, but after several weeks of dry heat, the rain stopped coming,” he said, describing his crops as no longer salvageable.
Even Saturday’s heavy rain failed to provide enough relief for the already cracked rice fields, he said.
In Katipunan, one of the town’s main rice-producing areas, some farmers were unable to continue planting at all. Farmers there said reports of planned cloud seeding operations may already come too late to save crops damaged by the heat since July.
Amid the dry-spell concerns, other sectors of Bohol’s agriculture saw gains.
The San Miguel Tilapia Growers Association completed its third harvest from a fish cage at the National Irrigation Administration dam in Bayongan, San Miguel, collecting 980 kilograms of tilapia worth 103,000 pesos on Aug. 21, 2026.
That brought the group’s total harvest to 3,591 kilograms worth 379,000 pesos across three harvests, with proceeds deposited for future production costs and organizational development.
The project has been supported by the provincial Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the National Irrigation Administration and the San Miguel local government.
Separately, Gov. Aris Aumentado urged young Boholanos to enter dairy farming as a career, calling for a new generation of farmers and professionals to sustain the industry’s growth.
Speaking at the 10th Bohol Dairy Festival in Talibon on Wednesday, Aumentado said the provincial government is ready to support expansion of dairy production and welcomed more farmers, businesses and organizations to join the sector to meet future demand, while appealing for continued national government funding.
The province aims to become the “Dairy Capital of the Visayas” as part of its push for climate-smart agriculture.
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern marked by the warming of surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, which typically brings below-average rainfall and higher temperatures to the Philippines.
The current episode has coincided with the Southwest Monsoon, compounding dry conditions in agricultural areas nationwide.
The Philippines, like Bohol, relies heavily on rainfed agriculture, making rice and corn production especially vulnerable to prolonged dry spells; delayed planting and reduced yields can drive up local food prices and strain household incomes in farming communities, while straining irrigation systems already under pressure from reduced dam levels.
Past El Niño episodes in the Philippines have led national and local governments to turn to cloud seeding a weather modification technique that uses aircraft to disperse substances into clouds to induce rainfall as a stopgap measure, though its effectiveness depends on funding, timing and existing cloud conditions.