Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson has urged the Department of Agriculture in Western Visayas (DA-6) to reconsider its bureau’s earlier recommendation not to conduct cloud seeding in the province.

Lacson said he appealed to DA-6 Regional Director Dennis Arpia to review the Bureau of Soil and Water Management’s (BSWM) recommendation against cloud seeding operations in drought-affected areas.

The governor, citing BSWM’s recommendation, said that the current cloud formations in the province will not result in light to moderate rain.

“We are not expecting heavy rains but slight and moderate rain,” Lacson said.

“It is the experts saying and not the DA anymore. They said it would not result in the rain we want,” he added.

Earlier, the BSWM said there are possibilities that cloud seeding will affect 20,000 mango trees in the province’s San Carlos City and another 5,000 trees in neighboring Guimaras Island.

“The clouds here do not have enough moisture. It would be a waste,” Arpia said.

They also told Lacson that the experts observed that “there are really no seedable clouds.”

Earlier, Negros Occidental 5th District Representative Emilio Yulo III called on the BSWM to conduct cloud seeding in the province.

Yulo said the BSWM should allow cloud seeding operations in the province to save agricultural crops.

The lawmaker also posted pictures of clouds on social media, disproving BSWM’s claims that there are no rain clouds.

He said that DA-6 should have closely looked at the situation of the entire province, which continues to reel from the effects of the dry spell.

However, he admitted that cloud seeding operations are a tedious process which entails bidding and procurement of the materials needed.

The Office of the Provincial Agriculturist said the drought brought by the El Niño phenomenon in the province has caused crop damage worth P97 million, affecting 136 barangays and 2,185 hectares./WDJ