Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
LAST week, the Cebu-based SunStar Cebu newspaper published a report about the massive losses experienced by vegetable farmers in Cebu City's mountain barangay (villages) due to soaring heat and insufficient water supply. The Cebu City government has responded to the crisis by providing additional water hoses, drums to store water, knapsack sprayers, fungicides and pesticides. Whether it will suffice to keep the farmers afloat and ensure adequate supply of vegetables to consumers in Metro Cebu remains to be seen as the end of summer is still weeks away.
Addressing the crisis and its immediate effects is urgent — and so is finding ways to lessen the farmers' vulnerability to weather conditions. While a scorching sun and less rainfall are the common characteristics of summer — why we also call it dry season — climate change has led to more extreme heat while we've gone from little to even less rainfall. Lower than normal rainfall and the faster evapotranspiration — meaning, water in soil and plants evaporates faster due to the higher temperature — is bad news for farmers in Cebu City and elsewhere on Planet Earth. Millions of people on the Horn of Africa (the easternmost part of Africa) are suffering due to the effects of prolonged drought and extreme heat. Says World Weather Attribution in its recently released report: "Climate change has made events like the current drought [in the Horn of Africa] much stronger and more likely; a conservative estimate is that such droughts have become about 100 times more likely." Yes, 100 times.
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