TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, July 22 (PIA) – The Department of Agriculture (DA) is now shifting their focus back to research and development (R&D) especially on the rice value chain, to look into the issue of why farmers are still producing below what they should be getting.
This was shared by DA7 Information Officer Cheryl dela Victoria with information officer members of the Association of United Development Information Officers of Bohol (AUDIO Bohol) during Briefing on Food Security at the Bohol Public School Teachers and Employees Association building on July 20.
President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. has recently taken on the agriculture portfolio and announced that he wants rice to be commercially available at P20 a kilo or Beynte’ng Bigas.
Regionalized Focal Person for Rice in Region 7 Cecille Opada said the Philippine Statistics Authority’s data has shown that the average yield for a hectare of rice farm here is 3.0 tons.
That, however, is after farmers follow what they think works because it worked then.
Opada said this is a mistake that has been ingrained in the mentality of the farmers.
She said that every rice technician at DA knows they can grow from 7 to 10 tons in a hectare, with planting at the right time, putting the right inputs, and using the right rice seed varieties.
For example, there are already many rice seeds available but one of the best performing varieties is the PSB RC18.
PSB, or the Philippine Seeds Board, has long been replaced by the National Seed Industry Council and hundreds of rice varieties have been promoted, but RC18 remains among the best performers.
In a field experiment on the agronomic response, RC18, a lowland rice grown under different water, spacing and nutrient management, shows that the variety may not need continuous flooding to produce high grain yield.
Study shows that PSB RC18 under soil-saturated but not fully flooded was significantly higher than under continuous flooding, so this needs less irrigation, saving half of the water usually required for most later varieties.
And while plant height was reduced in no flooding conditions, this shows its resistance to lodging even at high grain yield.
The rice variety can subsist on goat manure and compost mixture of madre de cacao, goat manure, rice straw and carbonized rice hull producing the same grain yield as the expensive inorganic fertilizer.
For years, Filipino farmers have used transplanting than direct seeding method, a lot of seedlings die in the transplanting process, significantly reducing yields.
Storage of dried seeds also matter, Opada added, as improperly dried seeds do not germinate, and the farmer tends to lose about half of the seeds he germinates for transplanting.
Part of the actions for DA now is to establish a multi-year plan to address the value chain in a roadmap to 2030, which includes a disaster-proof agriculture infrastructure and energy efficient low maintenance cost structures to bring the costs down. (RAHC/PIA7 Bohol)
