The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) here summoned for verification local rice farmers who are seeking government financial assistance to support them recover from the destruction of this season’s crops due to El Niño.

A total of 943 rice farmers showed up at the Municipal Hall in this town on Wednesday morning to officially declare their rice crops “totally damaged,” according to the San Jose Municipal Information Office (MIO).

Personnel of the Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO) and Municipal Social Welfare and Development (MSWD) Office were on hand to validate farmers’ claims that their rice crops were indeed wiped out by the dry spell, which has proven particularly severe in Occidental Mindoro.

Farmers whose claims were validated can expect to receive the payout of their “ayuda” (assistance) on April 23, San Jose’s MIO said.

Meanwhile, DSWD Assistant Secretary and newly-designated spokesperson Irene Dumlao said the department is also taking its Project LAWA at BINHI (Local Adaptation to Water Access and Breaking Insufficiency through Nutritious Harvest for the Impoverished) to drought-affected farmers of Occidental Mindoro.

She told the Philippine News Agency on Wednesday that the project involves employing farmers in El Niño-devastated towns build mini water reservoirs to irrigate their own crops.

“We (the DSWD) will pay them (farmers) the equivalent of minimum wage to undergo training and then applying what they have learned to build reservoirs and other water systems in their towns. This is part of the DSWD’s efforts to provide affected farmers with temporary income to combat hunger and build resiliency amid El Niño… exacerbated by climate change,” she said. (PNA)