The country is projected to lose around 1.46 million metric tons of rice due to El Niño, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) said on Saturday.

The agency made the estimate based on 257,600 hectares of rice field across the country that may be affected by El Niño.

Josephine Salazar, NIA’s deputy administrator for engineering and operations, said Central Luzon tops the list with 85,000 hectares followed by Soccsksargen with 27,000 hectares and Ilocos, 24,000 hectares.

Salazar said other vulnerable regions include Mimaropa, 17,000 hectares, Western Visayas, 15,000 , Central Visayas, 14,000 and Zamboanga Peninsula, 13,000 hectares.

"For the overall direction of NIA this 2024, we are also preparing for the El Niño as well. We have identified some 275,000 hectares of vulnerable area nationwide and under our proposed budget for 2024, we have immediate measures for that," she said.

"We are now in the program of practicing some climate change resilient projects so we are now doing some drip irrigation as well as the sprinkler system," she added.

According to the state weather bureau, El Niño is expected to affect the country towards the end of the year until the first quarter of 2024. Robina Asido