A farmer gestures in the middle of her plots of tomatoes. (CDN FILE PHOTO)
Crop losses incurred by 13 mountain barangays in Cebu City have reached over P5 million with five hectares of farm land affected by last week’s downpour, the City Agriculture Office said yesterday.
Asst. City Agriculturist Arleigh Gesta said Barangays Sinsin, Sudlon I, Sudlon II, Paril, Malubog, Mabini, Lusaran, Guba, Cambinocot, Binaliw, Tagbao, Sirao and Buot were hard hit by the rain.
Crop damages in Barangay Sirao alone reached P2.3 million, Gesta said.
He said the prices of vegetables in Carbon market was P10 to P20 higher compared to the products sold last week.
“In our monitoring, the price rose by P10-P20 except for spinach which increased by 100 percent,” Gesta said.
But he said there is no shortage of vegetables in the market since some products came from other sources. In Barangay Sudlon, farmers reported losing their harvest of lettuce, Chinese cabbage, ampalaya, tomatoes, egg plant and pepper to rain.
“Majority are roses and mums. All the rest are high value vegetables,” Gesta said.
Livestock deaths had been pegged at P55,000. Gesta said they instructed farmers there on what to do to recover their losses.
“We advised them to instead plant resistant crops like string beans and sweet potato. These are susceptible to temperature and rains,” Gesta said.
He said they will finalize their recommendation to the City Council on the amount of financial aid to be given to the farmers by Friday this week.