PILI, Camarines Sur - The Department of Agriculture has sought $100,000 emergency assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations for the agriculture sector of Bicol region, according to a press release the Bicol Mail obtained from the regional office here.

        Emily Bordado, chief of the communication section here, explained that Agriculture Sec. Arthur Yap was said to be working out the details with the FAO to be allotted for farm inputs which will benefit typhoon-ravaged Bicol farmers.

        Bordado said the FAO emergency assistance under negotiations will be allotted for vegetable seeds, fertilizers, farming tools, chickens and fingerlings. She added, another FAO program is being drawn up with the DA for other areas hit by typhoons in other regions.

        Late last year, the DA here reported that some 101,308 farming families lost their means of livelihood to the two successive typhoons, ‘Reming’ and ‘Seniang’, that ravaged Bicol a week apart.

        For one, the region’s vegetable insufficiency level had been aggravated from 83.2 percent to 26.5 percent after the two successive typhoons buffeted.

        The DA estimated the damages in livestock and fisheries at P137 million and P138 million, respectively, with all other agricultural crops’ losses recorded at hundreds of millions of pesos, except for corn production.

        Affecting some 23,085 farming families dependent on rice production, the estimated losses in rice production had reached an estimated value of P154 million, the equivalent of some 70,208 MT of rice crop destroyed.

        Responding to the immediate needs of farming families after the onslaught of the typhoons, the DA here has initially provided

        emergency assistance which included P90,000 worth of vegetables totaling eight tons, according to Bordado.

        She added that they have also provided 500 bags of rice to help augment rice inventories in Camarines Sur and Albay.

        “The DA employees from the Main office in Quezon City and from other regional offices have also forgone the traditional Christmas parties and instead pooled their donations of cash and kind for the typhoon victims” Bordado said citing local initiatives to assist the Bicol farmers.

        Yap, on Thursday, made a second visit in Albay to meet officials of the DA and its attached agencies regarding rehabilitation efforts for the typhoon-ravaged Bicol farmers and fisherfolk.

        He visited evacuation center in Daraga and handed out relief goods to evacuees in Daraga.

        Yap, who accompanied President Arroyo in Albay few days after the devastating typhoon Reming, also met Gov. Fernando Gonzales and later proceeded to the Philippine Coconut Authority research center in Guinobatan and where turned over to the governor coconut seedlings for the nursery.

        The agricultural secretary also made a visit to Ligao City where he distributed certified palay seeds, vegetables seeds, coco seed nuts, pili seedlings, abaca seed pieces, insecticides, herbicides, gillnets, 4-wheeled drive tractors and other production inputs.