Ecobreves – CUBA: Farmers on Alert for El Niño

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

HAVANA, Dec 23 2006 (IPS) - Cuban farmers are worried about excessive rains, blamed on the climate phenomenon known as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), that continued to fall across this island nation in December. “Rain is a good thing, but not this much. The soil is too wet for the winter planting,” and there is greater risk of mold on the crops, Rubén Torres, a farmer outside the city of Santa Clara, 268 km east of Havana, told Tierramérica.

ENSO will trigger heavier rains and storms between January and April, warns a report from the climate center at the Cuban Institute of Meteorology.

The phenomenon involves a five-month temperature hike of half a degree Celsius of the surface waters of the western, central and eastern Pacific Ocean. The most devastating El Niño, in 1993, is blamed for economic losses of more than a billion dollars.