To brace for the possible crises that El Niño will bring to the state’s agri-fishery economy, a whole-of-government approach is being taken to ensure efficient mitigating measures, said the National Irrigation Authority on Wednesday.

NIA Administrator Engr. Eduardo Guillen said that as early as October last year, local and national agencies had already started having close coordination and crafting interventions in anticipation of the weather phenomenon.

The government has almost doubled the NIA’s funds for solar pump irrigation and the establishment of additional dams all over the country, among others. “The NIA’s fund has increased, so let's expect that the newly irrigated lands to be turned over will be larger,” Guillen said.

Moreover, he said local government units have access to all high-yielding crop seeds to be distributed to affected farmers, adding that the government has a newly laid-out cropping calendar.

“We are all coordinating… the LGUs, the DA's national rice program, PhilRice because they have the funds for our seeds,” he said. “We ensure that the farmers who are supposed to receive [aid] should receive the input in time.”

Despite the onset of a strong and mature El Niño, Guillen is confident that the country will have stable local harvest of rice this year, stating that yields are higher in sunny weather.

“We estimate that 20 percent will be affected by El Nino, but if that 20 percent… and what you planted immediately increases its yield to 50 percent, our production will definitely not decrease,” he said.

He also shared that the agency is implementing an alternative wetting and drying technology in Central Luzon to boost around 20 to 30 percent of their irrigation systems.