The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern persists until now over the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This warming of sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean is expected to last into the mid-year. The impact of this phenomenon is not only limited to the Philippines but is worldwide.

El Niño occurs when the warm oceanic phase is in effect causing extreme dry condition while La Niña happens during the cold phase resulting in wet conditions leaving more floods.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the expected impacts of El Niño during the next few months “would include drier-than-average conditions” over our part of the globe and “enhanced convection over the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, which will likely expand eastward and influence portions of the eastern tropical Pacific, as well as coastal sections of Peru and Ecuador.” It would bring dry conditions in the Western Pacific (Philippines, Indonesia, etc.), above-average precipitation on the other end of the Pacific (Western South America).

The El Niño/ENSO is not something that is new. It has a quasi-periodic (read: fairly regular) cycle from three to seven years and can be forecasted from relevant satellite observations, oceanic observations, and ocean and atmosphere prediction models. Our own PAGASA has in fact warned of the impending 2010 El Niño last year.

Food crisis is preventable
Although all losses cannot be avoided, knowing these El Niño forecasts can reduce the disastrous impacts of the drought conditions in our countries. In agriculture, irrigation, crop planting decisions, seed selection, fertilizer application can be planned ahead to reduce the effects of the drought. Crop inventories can be also adjusted to anticipate the fluctuations due to El Niño.

Without these preparations, a likely scenario would be another food crisis especially if the climatic adversities brought about by El Niño phenomenon would persist in the next couple of months. The severe drought is already creating havoc in many parts of the country especially in Cagayan Valley and Isabela as well as other provinces such as Benguet, Batanes, Nueva Viscaya, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Pam-panga, Batangas, Iloilo, Gui-maras, Antique, Negros Occi-dental and Capiz. These are mostly our grain (rice and corn) producing areas in the country.

The 2010 El Niño is expected to devastate nearly half a million hectares of rice, more than 200,000 hectares of corn fields and around 15,000 hectares of the fishery industry in the country. Apart from its direct impact of crop damage and reduced productivity, severe conditions of drought may also lead to environmental problems such as salt-water intrusion and forest/grass fires. The 2010 El Niño is projected to do P 10 billion worth of crop damage.

The national government needs to learn its lessons when confronted with environmental disasters such as El Niño and typhoons. Last year’s strong typhoons and flooding and the recurring El Niño-induced drought should be anticipated before they occur. Expensive cloud seeding and rice importation are only short-term solutions to these hazards.

Strong agricultural infrastructure
We need to rely more on a strong agricultural infrastructure that would span governmental support from planting to post-harvest facilities. We need to improve irrigation systems. The existing systems that are being operated under national, private and communal management are not sufficient to provide the needed water requirement for farming. We need to build more. The existing irrigation facilities are also compounded with various problems such as poor operational management and the absence of rehabilitation mechanisms for the irrigation facilities.

The government supposed spending of P6 million for irrigation under the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act did not translate into better services for agricultural water supply. Farmers are left with nothing but dilapidated communal irrigation facilities and withered crops reflecting their bleak future in the midst of the devastation left by El Niño.

Instead of relying more on imports of rice, we need to improve the productive forces in agriculture: modernize agricultural tools, provide access to land for tillers and give genuine and adequate support to our farmers to make them really productive and our agriculture sustainable.

Our domestic production is vulnerable to the effects of climate oscillations such as El Niño because of the generally backward conditions of production riding on widespread landlessness of farmers engaged in the rice sector. If the government is serious in addressing climate change, El Niño, La Niña and other threats to our food security, it must address landlessness and the lack of government support to sustain agricultural productivity.