A total of about P420 million in insurance claims across the country is ready for immediate payout to farmers who have lost their crops to the dry spell caused by the El Niño phenomenon, the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC) said on Saturday. The NIA said that during the previous stronger occurrence of El Niño in March 2015, water level at the Pantabangan reservoir fell to 184.02 meters. The SRA recently reduced its production estimate for the current crop year to 2.08 million MT from 2.25 million MT. It said it was allocating 95 percent of the sugar production to the local market, with the remaining 5 percent reserved for the US market. Sugar production on Negros Island, which produces more than half of the country’s supply, has ebbed, according to the agency.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer March 16, 2019 23:26 UTC