The current rainy season has been beneficial for the vast majority of Jalisco agriculture.
However, in specific places there have been problems due to excess humidity and flooding, which have already been reported and registered in the Agricultural Insurance Program of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER Jalisco).
The Agricultural Insurance Program has resources tagged for 20 million pesos in fiscal year 2021, to compensate for damages in agricultural claims caused by storms, drought, or excess humidity.
Reports of claims have been received in seven municipalities of the entity, which accumulates 1,860 hectares. The great majority is corn, which after verifying the reality of the irreversible damages, 1,760 hectares will be supported. The support for farmers affected by the claims amounts to two thousand pesos per hectare, as established in the operating rules.
SADER Jalisco will continue to receive complaints about agricultural claims until the hurricane season passes at the end of October.
Prior to hurricane “Nora,” the municipality most affected at has been Jamay, whose damaged and already supervised area is 900 hectares of fields cultivated with corn. Other affected municipalities have been Ocotlán, Acatlán de Juárez, Totatiche and San Marcos, in the case of corn.
It had also been verified that there are 113 hectares of rice that have been affected by flooding, in the case of the municipality of San Martín Hidalgo.
Agricultural damage from hurricane “Nora” has not been assessed yet.
Rice producer Rubén Ramos from San Martín Hidalgo remembers that for more than 30 years there had not been an excess of rain to such a degree that the rice was spoiled by being submerged in the water for several days, as has happened this year.
“The rice can last all year in the plot as long as the water does not cover it; but when the water covers it completely, in three days it rots. Water fell, water and water. The water began to flow from the canals and the rice was flooded. This hasn't happened since the aforementioned Niño incident some 30 years ago,” explained the producer.
There are three rice micro-regions in the Jalisco countryside; in the Tomatlán valley, in the Corrinchis dam basin in Mascota, and in the municipality of San Martín Hidalgo, in the Lagunas Region.
The positive part of the storm is the abundance of precipitation in the regions with the highest grain production, as in the Ciénega de Chapala, where there are testimonies of a magnificent behavior of the rain.