El Niño Leaves 110,000 Agri Workers In Northern Mindanao Jobless

About 110,000 agricultural workers in northern Mindanao lost jobs due to the prolonged El Niño phenomenon in the country, the regional National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) reported Thursday.

Cecilio Y. Clarete, NEDA specialist in Northern Mindanao, said as of October 2015, agricultural workers in the region accounted only 725,000, down 13.28 percent or 110,000 workers from the 850,000 workers registered in 2014 during the same month.

He said that the employment sector in the agricultural industry covers agriculture-hunting and forestry, fishing, industry and mining and quarrying.

Aside from the decrease in employment, unemployment in the region also decreased to 1.9 million in October 2015, which is lower compared to more than 2 million recorded in October 2014.

Aside from taking a toll on the employment status in the agricultural sector, the El Niño phenomenon has greatly affected the palay production in the region.

Clarete said that the NEDA records showed that there was a spike in palay production in the fourth quarter of 2015 here at 12.9 percent or a total of only 234,276 metric tons harvested.

In contrast, the corn production increased ten percent higher with 401,570 metric tons harvested.

Coconuts, the main agricultural product for export in Northern Mindanao, had its production decreased slightly at 0.2 percent, which represents 476,953,596 pieces of coconuts harvested.

The coconut by-products are mostly transported to other countries in the form of activated carbon, coconut chemicals, coconut cream, coconut fiber, coconut milk powder, coconut oil, coconut shell charcoal, coconut water, copra cake/meal, desiccated coconut, reduced fat coconut, toasted coconuts, sweetened coconut and palm oil-fatty acid. (PNA) BNB/CD/MARK FRANCISCO