Farmers in Antique province affected by the southwest monsoon and enhanced by Typhoon Maring will receive palay seeds as replanting material next week.

Antique Provincial Agriculturist Nicolasito Calawag said in an interview Thursday that they received damage reports from four towns of the province amounting to PHP1,183,218 based on the farm gate price, but that they had been assured of the Department of Agriculture (DA) Regional Office 6 (Western Visayas) of their replanting material.

“We are expecting 600 bags of seeds from the DA to be delivered for the farmers affected by the flooding,” he said.

The southwest monsoon on Oct. 5-8 affected 164 farmers whose crops in various stages, from newly planted to maturity, were damaged.

“The towns that had been affected due to flooding are Anini-y, Hamtic, Sebaste and Patnongon,” he said.

He added that from the four towns, 131.65 total hectares of rice land had been damaged.

He said that two bags of rice seeds will be given to the farmers for every hectare of a damaged farm.

Serafin Yanga, Office of the Provincial Agriculture Planning Officer II and the Natural Calamity Focal Person, said in a separate interview that in their final report the towns of Anini-y incurred PHP217,098 total damage on its 11.85 hectares of rice land; Hamtic with PHP807,840 on its 92.5 hectares; Sebaste with PHP132,000 on its 20 hectares; and Patnongon with PHP26,280 on its 7.3 hectares.

Meanwhile, 905 farmers affected by Typhoon Jolina on September 7 to 13 already received their initial seeds assistance this week.

“We were able to receive an initial of 500 bags of seeds from DA that were immediately distributed to the farmers reported by their Municipal Agriculture Officers to have been affected by Typhoon Jolina then,” Calawag said. (PNA)