Rice farmers urged to switch to high-yield varieties

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is urging farmers to switch to high-yield hybrid rice varieties now that the country has fewer rice fields. “To attain self-sufficiency in three years time, we need to use proven farming technologies that not only increase yield but raise farmer’s income as well," said Dr. Frisco Malabanan, the DA's rice program director. The DA aims to make the country self-sufficient in rice by 2013. “In terms of average yield, Vietnam has overtaken us but we are relatively better than those of Thailand because of the use of high quality genetic materials and other productivity-enhancing technologies," he said. “High yield starts with sowing quality seeds, whether hybrid or inbred rice." In the past three decades, the technology helped China achieve food security. However, it has not yet reached its full potential in tropical areas. The DA admits hybrid rice seeds and seedlings require greater attention but it is grown much like other rice varieties. To improve the country’s rice production, the DA says cluster demonstration, farmers’ training, and accessible credit for farmers are also needed. The DA must also continue its irrigation and infrastructure projects, and provide composting and postharvest facilities to farmers. The DA notes that Filipino farmers in the past were not quality conscious. They relied on their own supply of seeds and or on those they obtain from other farmers. Today, after the DA initiated a program that teaches farmers to shift to either hybrid or inbred rice certified seeds (CS), more farmers are shifting to modern rice varieties available through local seed growers. A farmer needs 15 to 20 kilograms of hybrid rice seeds per hectare and 40 kilograms of CS per hectare. He also needs to buy new seeds every planting season to ensure high yields. The DA subsidizes the prices of both hybrid and CS to encourage more farmers to use them. After years of promoting CS, the DA says more rice fields are now planted with CS, previously regarded by most farmers as too expensive compared to hybrid seeds. Before the DA’s rice program began in 2001, CS was planted to only 350,000 hectares of rice fields. In 2009, it was already planted in 2.73 million hectares of rice fields. Compared to the CS, however, hybrid rice still has the highest yield. The DA says farmers can harvest 6-12 metric tons of hybrid rice per hectare, about 15 to 30 percent more than the yield of the best CS. The DA says farmers can now choose from a wide variety of hybrid rice as more private companies, not just the public sector, engage in rice research and development. In Nueva Ecija, farmers were surprised by the high yield of their rice fields. More than 55,000 hectares of rice fields were planted with hybrid rice during the dry cropping season with an average yield of 7.73 metric tons per hectare. On the contrary, only 5.70 MT per hectare were harvested from more than 93,000 hectares of rice fields planted with inbred rice CS. –VVP/VS, GMANews.TV