THE CITY Agricultural Office (CAgrO) established 500 units of rainwater catchment as of May 2024.
This benefited 500 farmers from the Marilog and Paquibato districts as one rainwater catchment is to one beneficiary.
The catchments are used to irrigate farmlands and water livestock and fish ponds for tilapia and catfish fingerlings.
“The beneficiaries of these catchments are those from upland areas so that the rainwater will be stored here instead of flowing to the lowland,” Engr. Karen Joy Delos Reyes, CAgrO Agriculture Biosystems Engineering Division official said, during ISPEAK Media Forum.
Delos Reyes said the catchments helped the farmers during the peak of the El Niño phenomenon. Each catchment system measures 10×15 meters, 2 meters deep with a capacity of 200-300 cubic meters.
Engr. Gilbert Iglesias, CAgrO Agrifishery Projects in-charge urged interested farmers to request from their barangay for the installment of the catchment system.
Requesting farmers only need to acquire a barangay resolution to be endorsed to the district offices to evaluate the request.
If the area is found feasible for the installment of the system, the requesting party must provide proof of land ownership where the rainwater catchment will be placed.
An approval from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) must be secured for lands classified under the ancestral domain of the indigenous people.
Iglesias said the request is free of charge as the CAgrO also covers the fuel cost for the excavator. In 2024, 120 rainwater catchment systems in the Marilog and Paquibato districts. CAgro has installed 38 as of May.
