With climate change threatening crops, the city government of Batac in Ilocos Norte is eyeing to establish a solar power irrigation system in Barangay San Mateo, where a small water impounding dam is located.<\/p>\n
Batac City Mayor Albert Chua confirmed this on Friday as representatives of the Climate Change Commission (CCC) conducted a field validation of the city\u2019s various infrastructure projects for funding by the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).<\/p>\n
He said the proposed solar power irrigation system is a big boost to increase the productivity of farmers as it will maximize water collection and storage to augment water supplies and increase the likelihood of growing high-value crops during the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe solar irrigation system will be a big help to our farmers. Irrigation is always a challenge in Batac that is why we continue to dredge our water ways and construct more farm reservoirs to address water shortage especially during summer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The proposed solar irrigation project is located in an area overlooking the national highway connecting Batac to Banna town.<\/p>\n
Chua said the location is feasible for the proposed project because it has continuous water supply even during summer time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have checked on other areas and the site is the most feasible for solar irrigation to benefit farmers in rain-fed areas for them to save on fuel. To help achieve food sufficiency, the Marcos administration has been pushing for a nationwide solar-powered irrigation program which include Batac City in Ilocos Norte as one of the pilot sites,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are grateful to our governor for recommending Batac as one of the field validation sites of the CCC. We hope that this will materialize soon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Apart from constructing solar irrigation system, the city government is also urging its farmers to plant drought-resistant crops as response to climate change. (PNA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Batac City explores solar irrigation to ensure water for crops and tackle climate change. \ud83c\udf31<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":255764,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15011],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-greeninc"],"zyndk8_nxtgen_metadata":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=255763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/255764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=255763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=255763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatic-fuchsia-armadillo.46-250-226-234.cpanel.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=255763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}