Pangasinan, April 16 -- The provincial government of La Union has put up a PHP3 million emergency trust fund that El Nino-affected registered farmers and fisherfolk can tap into.

Dry spell-affected farmers and fisherfolk can avail of the financing upon validation of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPAG).

"We have seen that the first to be affected are farmers and fisherfolk so we have allocated funds for their insurance and farm equipment and vegetable seeds that are drought-resistant," Governor Raphaelle Veronica Ortega-David said in a statement in Filipino.

In a separate statement, OPAG officer-in-charge Sharon Viloria said they encouraged farmers to cultivate short-gestating crops such as vegetable crops months before th...