MANILA, Feb 24 - Damage from a dry spell that has hit wide swathes of farmlands in the Philippines, including those planted to rice, has cost about 7 billion pesos ($152 million), a government source said on Wednesday. The information was based on field data gathered earlier this week and was presented at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the source said. The Philippines, the world's biggest rice buyer, has said it may import around 800,000 tonnes more of the grain due to the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon on the crop, pushing its rice purchases to a record high.

Agriculture Secretary Joel Rudinas told reporters on Wednesday official field reports as of Feb. 17 indicated damages worth 3.7 billion pesos to mostly rice and corn crops. He declined to confirm the 7-billion-pesos damage estimate.

"There are some areas that are experiencing good farm conditions even if some areas are badly affected," Rudinas said. "This is still within our estimated damages under El Nino."

The agriculture department earlier said damages from a prolonged dry spell could reach anywhere from 8 billion pesos to 20 billion pesos.

A severe dry spell could wipe out 816,372 tonnes of unmilled rice worth 12.24 billion pesos and 440,429 tonnes of corn worth 5.2 billion pesos, based on earlier estimates from the agriculture department.

The government created in December an El Nino task force which was ordered to implement measures such as cloud seeding and rehabilitation of irrigation facilities to mitigate the impact of the dry spell on farm output.

An El Nino advisory issued by the weather agency earlier this month said Capiz province in central Philippines was experiencing drought. It also said nine provinces, mostly rice-growing areas, on the main island of Luzon and three others in the central Visayas region were hit by dry spells.

El Nino is a periodic abnormal warming in the Pacific Ocean that causes havoc in global weather patterns and occurs only once every two to seven years.