Preparing for El Niño: What AGREA's Partner Communities Learned About Drought-Tolerant Crops, Insurance, and Government Support

On 5 November 2026, AGREA Foundation briefed partner communities online on El Niño preparation—drought-tolerant crops, government assistance, and food budgeting.

Why the session was held in the first week of November

The timing was not arbitrary.

On 5 November 2026, AGREA Foundation convened an El Niño Preparedness Session online via Zoom for its partner communities. In one hour, the team covered El Niño context and how to prepare, the drought-tolerant crops partner farmers can plant, the government agencies that offer support and products, food budgeting tips, reliable sources of information, and an open forum.

By that date, the forecast had already narrowed to a specific window of risk. The Department of Agriculture reported in May 2026 that PAGASA had identified a 92-percent probability of a moderate to strong El Niño striking in the fourth quarter of 2026, potentially extending into early 2027. A climate impact outlook published in late August stated that El Niño was expected to strengthen during the second half of 2026, with agriculture and water resources identified as the principal impact pathways and exposure greatest in rainfed and drought-prone agricultural areas. Regional disaster councils reviewing the forecasts noted that the most severe impacts on agriculture may occur from October to December 2026 and from January to March 2027.

November sits at the beginning of that window. A session held in November is a session held at the last practical moment before the damage begins — early enough to change what gets planted, late enough that the forecast is no longer speculative.

The participants were the communities AGREA works with most closely: women's cooperatives, Women Food Producers Associations, people's organizations, and Farm School students, past and present.

What the session covered, and why each part matters

El Niño context and how to prepare

The first segment set out what El Niño is, what it does to Philippine agriculture, and what preparation looks like in practice.

The mechanisms are documented. PAGASA has warned that the phenomenon brings reduced soil moisture, low crop production, and increased pest attacks, alongside reduced rainfall affecting water resources for irrigation and power generation. The DA has warned separately that a moderate to strong event could hit farm output, sharply undermine farmers' incomes, and slow economic activity — and that the combined impact of climate stress and higher energy costs could heighten risks to food supply and push up prices.

That combination is the part that catches households off guard. A dry spell reduces yield. Higher fuel and input costs reduce margin. The two arrive together, and the household absorbs both.

Drought-tolerant crops

The second segment covered what farmers can plant.

For rice, DA-PhilRice has been advising farmers to consider early-maturing and drought-tolerant varieties as part of their preparations, noting that water shortages in major rice-producing areas are a likely consequence of the phenomenon. The varieties named in PhilRice's guidance include PSB Rc 10, NSIC Rc 480, NSIC Rc 594, NSIC Rc 596, NSIC Rc 572, NSIC Rc 732, and NSIC Rc 740. Reporting on the recommendations notes that the early-maturing varieties among these can be harvested within 106 to 113 days. NSIC Rc 732 is described by PhilRice as tolerant of drought, salinity, and submergence, with yields ranging from 4.4 to 6.9 tonnes per hectare in saline environments.

The shorter maturity window is the practical point. A variety that finishes in under four months can be planted and harvested inside a dry period that a longer-duration variety would not survive. It is not a guarantee of yield. It is a way of reducing the exposure.

For farmers who cannot plant rice at all because the water is not there, DA regional offices have been recommending a shift to crops that need less of it. In Cagayan Valley, the advice was to move to mung bean, peanut, cassava, and sweet potato where planting could no longer proceed. In later guidance, the same message was framed as diversification: planting heat- and drought-tolerant crops including root crops such as ube and sweet potato, peanut, and legumes, and — for corn farmers — harvesting once crops reach marketable maturity rather than waiting, to minimise losses from prolonged dry conditions.

The logic of diversification is not only agronomic. A farm with one crop and one harvest window has one point of failure. A farm with cassava in the ground, legumes on a shorter cycle, and root crops that can be left in the soil until needed has several.

The DA has also been working to revive Kalimpos, a traditional open-pollinated white corn variety, for its ability to withstand drought and pest attacks — a reminder that some of the most drought-adapted planting material is not new.

Government agencies and what they offer

The third segment set out where support comes from, which is the part farmers most often learn about too late.

The Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) is the most consequential of these, because enrolment is a precondition rather than a benefit. DA has been encouraging farmers in vulnerable and hotspot areas to enrol in crop insurance through PCIC to ensure assistance if crops fail during extreme weather. The condition is explicit in provincial advisories: only farmers enrolled with PCIC are eligible to receive government assistance for agricultural losses caused by El Niño and other natural disasters. Coverage has been described at around ₱3,000 for each rice and corn beneficiary in Negros Oriental's enrolment drive.

The distinction matters. A farmer who has not enrolled is not merely uninsured. They are outside the eligibility gate for post-disaster assistance. Enrolment is something a farmer can do in advance of a disaster, which makes it exactly the kind of item that belongs in a November preparedness session rather than a January conversation.

The Department of Agriculture has been the channel for direct assistance. The Presidential Assistance for Farmers and Fisherfolk Program provides ₱2,325 each to more than 4.17 million farmers and fisherfolk nationwide. The DA has also described ₱45 billion in funds allocated for mitigation response against the looming effects of the phenomenon, alongside acceleration of solar-powered irrigation projects. A separate ₱7.86 billion disaster response fund has been set aside for El Niño impacts.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development has provided assistance to communities affected by El Niño, and the DA has described cash assistance arrangements coordinated with DSWD and the Department of Labor and Employment, including a TUPAD-linked programme for affected farmers and fisherfolk.

The article does not claim that every participant is eligible for every programme. Eligibility rules, registration requirements, and local implementation vary. What the session could do is tell people which doors exist and what documentation opens them.

Food budgeting and reliable information

The fourth segment addressed two things that sit outside agronomy but determine how a dry season is experienced at home.

Food budgeting is a household resilience measure. When a harvest falls short and prices rise, the households with the least flexibility are the ones that absorb the shock by eating less or eating worse. A session on budgeting — planning purchases, prioritising staples, buying in quantities that match cash flow — is a session about protecting nutrition when income is uncertain.

The segment on reliable sources of information is a response to a specific problem. During a slow-onset event like El Niño, misinformation spreads easily: unverified forecasts, exaggerated claims, and advice that is not locally applicable. The alternative is to know which agencies publish authoritative information — PAGASA for climate forecasts and rainfall outlooks, DA and PhilRice for variety recommendations and programme details, PCIC for insurance, DSWD for social protection — and to check them rather than relying on forwarded messages.

The open forum, and what it adds

The session ended with an open forum where participants asked questions and shared what their own communities are doing to prepare.

This is the part of a one-hour online session that is hardest to plan and most likely to be useful. A briefing that runs from presenter to audience transfers information. An open forum lets a cooperative in one province hear what a cooperative in another has already tried — whether a particular variety performed, whether an insurance claim was paid, whether a local agriculture office responded. Peer experience travels faster than official guidance, and it is often more specific.

The article does not report what was raised in the forum, because the announcement does not describe it. That omission is a limit of the source, not a judgment about the discussion.

This is not a first effort

For AGREA, an El Niño session is a return to a subject rather than a new one.

In December 2023, AGREA Foundation, the Philippines Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture, and Oxfam Pilipinas organised an El Niño forum titled Capacitating readiness and awareness among Civil Society Organizations. It drew 61 attendees from youth groups, women's and farmers' associations, and government and non-government agencies over two days.

The 2026 session differs in audience and scope. It was one hour rather than two days, online rather than in person, and directed at partner communities rather than at civil society organizations as a sector. But the underlying function is the same: getting accurate information about a forecast hazard to the people who will absorb its effects, before those effects arrive.

What the session does and does not establish

An hour on Zoom is an input, and it should be described as one.

It does not establish that any participant has switched to a drought-tolerant variety, enrolled in crop insurance, diversified a plot, or changed a household food budget. It does not establish that a cooperative has revised its planting calendar or that a local government unit has acted on what its farmers learned.

Those outcomes depend on things a briefing cannot supply: whether seed of the recommended varieties is actually available in the municipality, whether the local agriculture office can process PCIC enrolment, whether a farmer has the cash to buy inputs for a different crop, and whether the rain arrives when the forecast says it will.

What the session does establish is that a specific set of accurate, actionable information reached partner communities at the start of the window in which it could still be used. That is a modest claim, and it is the correct one.

What comes next

For the participants, the practical next steps are concrete and time-bound: check with the municipal agriculture office about seed availability for early-maturing varieties before the next planting window; confirm PCIC enrolment status and complete it if it is missing, since eligibility for later assistance depends on it; consider one short-cycle or drought-tolerant crop on a portion of the farm rather than converting the whole holding; and treat the harvest date of an existing crop as a decision rather than a fixed date.

For AGREA, the next step is follow-through — whether the session is repeated, whether the information is translated into formats that reach members who were not on the call, and whether the questions raised in the open forum are answered.

A note of appreciation

To the women's cooperatives, Women Food Producers Associations, people's organizations, and Farm School students who joined the session: preparing for a drought is mostly a set of small decisions made early, and the willingness to spend an hour on them in November is what makes them possible.

To learn more about AGREA Foundation's work on climate resilience and regenerative agriculture, explore our official channels. Cooperatives and local organizations interested in preparedness briefings or in collaborating on climate-resilient livelihoods can reach out through our contact page.