{"id":225774,"date":"2016-04-19T06:06:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T20:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=225774"},"modified":"2016-04-19T06:06:19","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T20:06:19","slug":"water-supply-enough-farmers-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/water-supply-enough-farmers-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Water supply enough for farmers for now"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"In<\/a>
In this photo taken last January, a farmer tends to his land and crops at the Kagman commercial farm plots administered by the Department of Lands and Natural Resources-Division of Agriculture. Despite the ongoing drought, no significant drying up of crops was reported yet, according to DLNR Secretary Richard Seman. \u00a0(Frauleine Villanueva-Dizon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite the current drought becoming worse in Micronesia, farmers on Saipan have adequate water supply for now, according to Department of Lands and Natural Resources Secretary Richard Seman.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we\u2019re doing okay, but it might get worse,\u201d Seman said.<\/p>\n

Asked if they have noticed any plants or crops drying or yellowing up because of the heat, Seman said they haven\u2019t seen such incidences yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot yet at this point but I\u2019m pretty sure that if it doesn\u2019t rain between now and next month, we\u2019ll start seeing some effect of this drought,\u201d Seman said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo far we\u2019re getting little but at least some consistent rain,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Seman said they are closely monitoring farmers and ensuring that their water sources are working.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re making sure that all of our wells and pumps are up and running,\u201d Seman said.<\/p>\n

Last January and since Typhoon Soudelor, wells servicing the land at the Kagman commercial farm plots encountered several problems including low production and control panel issues. <\/p>\n

DLNR-Division of Agriculture director Manny Tenorio said in a prior interview that there were only three wells working at the time.<\/p>\n

Tenorio said pumps are supposed to last up to five years, but because of the sediments in the water, the pumps usually corrode and deteriorate easily.<\/p>\n

They spend about $3,000 to $4,000 per pump water replacement. Each well can push up to 30 to 35 gallons per minute. <\/p>\n

According to Seman, the five wells dedicated to the commercial farm plots are now working.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are all working now,\u201d Seman said. <\/p>\n

To ensure that the farmers\u2019 source of water will not be interrupted, Seman said back-up pumps are being procured.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor is also procuring five more for backup,\u201d Seman said. <\/p>\n

According to Tenorio, farmers use untreated water directly from wells which are good for the plants and can use up to 40,000 gallons of water. They pay $10 per month per farm turnout.<\/p>\n

Because pumps sometimes break down and coupled with the ongoing drought, Tenorio said he encourages farmers to build and have their own tanks for water storage. <\/p>\n

\u201cI encourage people to apply with U.S Department of Agriculture\u2019s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, to build tanks,\u201d Tenorio said. <\/p>\n

\u201cGo and apply, you have nothing to lose. This is for you to have water, without water your crops are dead,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the current drought becoming worse in Micronesia, farmers on Saipan have adequate water supply…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":225803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[3475,11009,67,6333],"class_list":["post-225774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-last-january","tag-manny-tenorio","tag-people","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}