Black bugs damage rice in South Cotabato

KORONADAL CITY — Black bugs have ravaged an estimated P4 million worth of palay farms in South Cotabato province in the last few months, a ranking Agriculture official said on Sunday. Reynaldo H. Legaste, provincial agriculture chief, said that rice bugs have infested palay fields in at least six farming towns in the province. "But there are no moves yet to declare the province under a state of calamity due to black bug infestation," he said in an interview. Under the Local Government Code, local government units are authorized to declare a state of calamity to allow use of their calamity funds, which comprise five percent of their annual budget. The provincial government of South Cotabato may declare a state of calamity if at least three municipalities have made the same declaration. The provincial government has formed a task force to monitor the continuing onslaught of the rice black bug pest. The Regional Crop Protection Center and the Philippine Rice Research Institute form part of that group. Mr. Legaste declined to name the towns as well as the palay volume affected by the black bug infestation, saying the area’s rice situation will be discussed in a news briefing today. But it was learned that some palay farms in this city and nearby Tantangan town have been infested by the black bug. In Sto. Niño town, farmers have also begun counting damage due to the black, with Rosario Bernabe lamenting she lost about 10 bags to the pest in the January harvest season. Instead of the normal farm output of 70 sacks in her three-fourth hectare farm, Ms. Bernabe said she yielded just 58 sacks. A Department of Agriculture report described the black bug is a sap-sucking insect that often attacks rice plants. "It stays in cool, watery area like the rice fields where rice plants grow and they become dormant when the weather is hot or cold. They stay between cracks of the soil when hot and spread to the leaves of the rice plant at night time," it said. Mr. Legaste said swarms of black bug have been monitored in the province as early as September last year and may have come from farming areas in Maguindanao or North Cotabato province. - BusinessWorld, Romer S. Sarmiento