Citing the weather bureau’s advisory on Typhoon Rolly’s fury threatening to inflict widespread damage to thousands of hectares of the country’s rice, corn, coconut and vegetable crops, Senator Imee Marcos pressed the Duterte government to expand crop insurance for farmers.
This, as Marcos aired warnings over the weekend that affected farmers who failed to insure their crops are “not likely to recover” in the next planting season.
The chairperson of the Senate committee on economic affairs cited concerns that among those seen to be adversely affected are “farmers in Ilocandia through Central Luzon and Bicol who are already deep in debt in the wake of recent typhoons that flattened rice lands in the middle of the main October harvest.”
She warned that likely to be affected farmers whose crops were not insured are not seen to recover in the next planting season, adding: “We may be confronted with massive shortages, compelled to import, and the vicious cycle just widens and deepens.”
Marcos noted that even before 2021 national budget bill is passed, “we should increase the government’s crop insurance pay-outs as soon as possible.”
In a statement over the weekend, the senator observed that “farmers covered by sufficient insurance may have a fighting chance to survive this lost harvest season,” even as she noted that until relevant legislation is passed, “farmers will have little means to cope with natural calamities or pest infestations.”
To address the situation, Marcos had earlier filed Senate Bill 883 in August last year to “insure more farmers and fisherfolk” covered by the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC), counting only 2.27 million or 33.5 percent of their total number, as of 2018.
The Marcos bill provides that farmers will not need to wait for a state of calamity to be declared or agricultural damage to be assessed before they can collect on their insurance.
“A farmer would be able to automatically avail of payment even at the height of a typhoon, as soon as predetermined rainfall and windspeed thresholds are reached in what we call an index-based system,” the senator said, adding that farmers in far-flung areas will have “an alternative to the traditional system that offers higher pay-outs but requires the tedious filing of claims and assessment of damages.”
Marcos added that in order to give private insurers greater confidence in backing up agricultural investments, Senate Bill 883 also aims to enable the PCIC as a reinsurance agency that will cover agricultural insurance left out by the Philippine National Reinsurance Corp. (NatRe).
She said a better-funded and expanded crop insurance program is long overdue, citing a World Risk Index Report in 2017 that ranked the Philippines the third-most vulnerable nation to natural disasters.