Filipino farmers have to diversify their crops to make the agricultural sector more resilient to climate change, World Bank said
This suggestion was made recently by World Bank after typhoon Haiyan struck the central Philippines in November 2013 and brought about losses in agriculture worth US$709mn.
World Bank Group vice-president Rachel Kyte also asked farmers to use hybrid varieties of crops that were made to survive floods and other extreme weather conditions.
Crop diversification and use of technology, she said, will ensure that farmers still harvest some crop even after storms hit their area.
The World Bank had loaned the Philippines nearly US$1bn for reconstruction and rehabilitation projects for Yolanda-affected communities.
Kyte also said that the Philippines should make use of technology and beef up its irrigation systems. “We have lots of innovation on how to make irrigation systems more resilient so that they don’t silt up and then collapse and they are able to come back to full use and withstand the storm so that they could still be productive afterwards,” she added.
