BAGUIO CITY — The provinces of Benguet and Ifugao will be the pilot-testing areas of a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-funded climate change project.

According to Department of Agriculture (DA) Regional Executive Director Cesar Rodriguez, the project will focus mainly on research and development, to look on approaches on how to mitigate climate change.

The said project will also look into the effect of climate change to vegetable production which will be in line with the efforts of the Regional Development Council (RDC) in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) to implement climate change adaptation and disaster risk management.

The RDC-CAR has mandated all local governments and concerned regional line agencies to incorporate in their future plans climate change adaptation and disaster risk management measures for the protection of the people on the effects of climate change.

Rodriguez said Ifugao was chosen because of its mountainous and lowland areas, while for Benguet, it is identified as a watershed area.

Rodriguez also announced that the DA’s effort in rejuvenating and increasing of the areas for the region’s coffee industry is also part of the department’s climate change mitigation process.

The idea is to plant more trees, which could help in the prevention or neutralization of the present problem of too much carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which is one of the contributors of global warming, Rodriguez explained.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez confirmed that DA is now implementing a rehabilitation plan that will particularly address the needs of farmers affected by the recent typhoons.

According to Rodriguez, DA is providing seeds and fertilizer assistance to the region’s rice and corn sector.

He disclosed that they have allocated more than P33 million for the rice subsidy, and about P9.5 million for corn.

For rice, the DA is giving a seed subsidy of P1,200 per sack to each farmer beneficiary, for corn, the seed subsidy given to farmers is worth P2,000 per sack.

To assure that the subsidy will go to the right beneficiaries, local government units were tasked to come out with a masterlist, as they are the ones who can really identify the farmers who are in need of the subsidy.

Rodriguez also said that the Philippine Coconut Authority gave 700 bags of corn seeds to hybrid corn farmers in Abra.