Ompong to disrupt food supply, ‘cause prices to go up’

As the country reels from the nine-year high inflation rate, nature is about to deal blow to agriculture commodities in the form of Typhoon Ompong, supposedly the strongest to hit the country so far this year.

Asian Institute of Management economics professor Emmanuel Leyco said Ompong may cause food supply disruptions, particularly rice in Central Luzon and vegetables further up north.

“This will definitely cause prices to go up,” Leyco told GMA News Online on Thursday.

Inflation clocked in at 6.4 percent in August 2018, the fastest in nine years since it came in at 6.6 percent in March 2009. 

Prices of rice, energy, and transport were mainly responsible for the higher-than-expected inflation last month, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said.

The food and non-alcoholic beverages index was up 8.5 percent, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported on Wednesday September 5.

In a Facebook post, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said an estimated 1.2-million hectares of farms planted to rice and corn—ripe for harvest—may be affected by Ompong.

“The Field Operations Office of the Department of Agriculture projected that in a worst case scenario rice crops, some of which are ready for harvest in the Cordillera Region, Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, could suffer up to P7-billion in damages.”

“In a worst case scenario, an estimated 893,000 hectares of rice farms in the four regions will be affected by Typhoon Ompong,” the Agriculture chief said.

State weather bureau PAGASA said Ompong will be the strongest typhoon this year, peaking at gusts of up to 270 kilometers an hour on Thursday before easing to still-dangerous velocities as it approaches land. 

The deadliest to hit the country in recent memory is Super Typhoon Yolanda, with winds of up to 314 kilometers per hour. Yolanda left more than 7,350 people dead or missing across the central Philippines in November 2013.

The anticipated affects of the Ompong on food supply and prices could be tempered if there is sufficient preparation, Ateneo de Manila University economics professor Alvin Ang noted.

“Hindi naman siguro ganun kalala. Depende ‘yan kung nakapag-prepare naman na, kung nakapag harvest na bago dumating ... Kung hindi nag-prepare doon na magkakaron ng problema,” Ang said. —VDS, GMA News