ILAGAN, Isabela — The provincial government here reported Friday that over P422 million worth of corn plants in different parts of the province were rendered useless after they were severely affected by the worsening effects of the El Niño phenomenon or the prolonged dry spell which is now prevailing in most parts of the country.

Out of the 125,284 hectares of corn plantation in the province, 880 hectares have already been declared beyond recovery while over 46,000 hectares have been partially damaged and could only be recovered if substantial amount of rain falls soon upon the vast tracks of corn plantations.

Corn is one of the major agricultural crops being produced in the Cagayan Valley, including Isabela, aside from rice.

Based on the damage assessment report of the provincial agriculture office, at least 42,273 metric tons of corn have been destroyed, which has a total market value of over P422 million.

Included in the areas with totally or partially damaged corn plantations are the towns of Ilagan, Echague, San Mariano, San Pablo and Cauayan City. But more towns are expected to report increased agricultural crop damage in the coming months if the prolonged dry spell will continue to prevail in most parts of the country.

As part of the initial mitigating measures, the provincial government is giving out open source water pumps to affected farmers so that they could try to recover their crops that have already been partially damaged by the dry spell while awaiting the effects of the ongoing cloud seeding activities in the Cagayan Valley.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) and local government agencies have pooled their resources to conduct cloud seeding activities to bring rain to Region II in an effort to save corn and rice plantations in the area.