Agriculture pushes hybrid rice to meet sufficiency

Hybrid production technology could help the Philippines save almost P10 billion of rice importations starting next year, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday. Instead of 376,928 metric tons (MT), the country plans to have 377,000 MT of hybrid rice during crop year 2011 to reduce rice imports estimated at $144.84 million to $209.11 million, or P6.5 billion to P9.4 billion, Frisco Malabanan, director of the Ginituang Masaganang Ani Rice Program. Agriculture intends to plant hybrid rice to 505,623 hectares in 2011 and harvest up to 2.66 million MT under the commercial hybrid rice program. If things go according to government’s Rice Master Plan, the department expects farm output to reach sufficiency status in two years or by 2013 “We will be proposing to the new government the continuance of the rice program to achieve sufficiency status by 2013," Malabanan said. "Self-sufficiency would produce savings from rice importation, and an adequate supply of rice would give stable prices for consumers," he added. The Philippines needs to produce 21.61 million MT of rice to be self-sufficient in the commodity. Malabanan will ask the incoming Aquino administration to continue supporting the Hybrid Rice Program and the programs to mechanize farming techniques and post harvest processes, rehabilitate irrigation systems, and upgrade antiquated rice mills. Rice production grew 3 percent a year on average in the last nine years during the term of outgoing president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, except in 2009 when several typhoons devastated major rice-producing of Luzon. However, consumption also outpaced production, a recent survey of the government rice program showed. Demand grew at 4.7 percent, owing to the 2.13-percent annual population growth. Despite the lower rice output in the first quarter of 2010, the government said it will try to meet its target of 17.4 million MT this year. —Nikka Corsino/VS, GMANews.TV