Philippine rice farmer Francisco Santo Domingo’s life is in ruins after losing yet another gamble with nature, but the typhoon that destroyed his crops means gleeful loan sharks have again hit the jackpot.
Like thousands of other farmers, Santo Domingo will be forced to go back to the “shadow” bankers who dominate the nation’s agricultural economy and take on even more debt at exorbitant interest rates.
“My life is an endless cycle of borrowing money to plug more money that I owe,” a disconsolate Santo Domingo, 37, told AFP as he looked over crops that were just a week away from harvest but ruined by Typhoon Koppu.
“This storm will mean we will go hungry for a very long time. We bet everything on this harvest.”
Koppu brought floods as high as 3 metres (10 feet) to one of the Philippines’ most important rice growing regions, fertile central plains on the main island of Luzon.
