SAN ISIDRO, Nueva Ecija – Three months ago, several farmers here complained about the poor growth of their hybrid rice plants. They exhibited a picture of gloom as they predicted a low harvest this cropping season.
Last Wednesday, during a harvest festival in Barangay Pulo here, they established a picture of boom and boon.
Farmer Renato Linsangan, 64, of Barangay Mangga, this town, attested in his testimony during the festival’s brief program, that he was happy he did not destroy his rice plants at the height of reports, fanned by attestation by many farmers, that what were distributed to them were “defective” and “fake” hybrid seeds.
That time, he said, he noted that some of his young plants were maturing prematurely. He also wanted to plough-under his plants (binalak ko pong balasahin) but changed his mind after consulting with technicians and the outstanding farmers.
“Ngayon po, kapag inihagis ninyo ang platong plastic sa aking bukid, hindi po malalaglag sa lupa dahil sa makapal na bunga ng aking tanim na palay (If you throw a plastic plate now in my farm, it will not fall on the ground because of the plentiful grains in the panicle of my rice plants),” he said.
Another farmer, Alberto Galvez of Barangay Pulo, also in this town, said the evaluation, based on crop cuts in several portions of his farm, indicated that his harvest would be 204 cavans per hectare.
“Tuwang-tuwa po ako sa aning ito (I am very happy about this big harvest from my growing the SL-8 hybrid rice variety),” he said.
Galvez said he was one of those gripped by the “hybrid rice scare” due to the appearance of bolsters (bearing fruit) even while the plants were still very young.
In the harvest festival here Wednesday, the members of an evaluation team said farmer Alberto Galvez will harvest a total of 204 cavans per hectare, based on crop cut in various portions of the field, from his planted SL-8 hybrid rice variety.
The evaluation team is composed of representatives from the office of the provincial agriculturist, Central Luzon State University, National Food Authority, Regional Field Unit of the Department of Agriculture in Central Luzon, and the irrigator’s association.
They disclosed that in the actual harvesting evaluation they conducted in nearby Gapan City, Ariel delos Reyes of Barangay Sto. Cristo Norte, emerged as topnotcher with a harvest of 213 cavans.
They continue their evaluation in other towns and cities in Nueva Ecija as the harvesting activity progresses.
Serafin Santos, provincial agriculturist of Nueva Ecija, said that Nueva Ecija is expected to register an all-time high rice production record. He said results of early harvest in some parts of the province indicated good performances of hybrid rice and inbred rice varieties.
“We are calculating a minimum total harvest of 1.6 million metric tons,” Santos said. “It will top by more than a million tons our harvest last year,” he said during the festival’s program Wednesday.
Converted into cavans of 50 kilos each, the expected harvest will total to 32 million.
Santos attributed the expected unprecedented high harvest due to the increasing average production by the farmers because of their application of new technologies in production, expansion of production areas due to improved irrigation facilities, lowered cost of inputs particularly chemical fertilizers, and favorable weather conditions.
He said the production area for the current dry season cropping totaled to 145,000 hectares compared to last year’s 131,000 hectares. In the last wet season cropping, the total area was 170,000 ha.
The provincial agriculturist is certain that Nueva Ecija will maintain its standing as the No. 1 rice producing province in the country.
Based on the “Rice Figures in the Philippines” (PhilRice, 2007), Nueva Ecija had an average production of 1.13 million metric tons since 2002. It was followed by Isabela, 1.006 mt; Pangasinan, 832,114 mt; Iloilo, 763,893 mt; Cagayan, 548,369 mt, and Tarlac, 469,316 mt.
Santos said that of the total rice area in the province, some 41,000 hectares were planted to hybrid rice, mostly SL-8 variety, and the rest inbred rice varieties.
He said the cold spell and the tolerable 1.7 percent mixture of off-type seeds, which resulted in the appearance of early bolsters, made many farmers uneasy. But those who followed the advise from the teams of experts which monitored the growing of the variety in the farms, in applying remedial measures later confirmed that their plants growth vigorously well.
SL-Agritech Corporation chairman and chief operating officer Henry Lim, who attended the festival, said that the SL-8 rice seeds they produced and sold were proven not really defective but suffered only some initial problems due to climate change and mixtures that were difficult to avoid in seed production.
“The report about the early bolsters were overblown and caused anxiety among the farmers,” Lim said.
Lim expressed sadness about the report that some 1,000 hectares of land planted to SL-8 in Nueva Ecija were destroyed by the farmers because of unwarranted fear that the plants would not perform well.
He announced here that his corporation, which has been described by the father of hybrid rice, Prof. Yuan Long Ping of China, as the pioneer in the breeding of hybrid rice for the tropics, said a better performing hybrid variety than their SL-8 will be introduced soon for commercial production. He said farmer Aida Badong of Barangay San Nicolas, Baao, Camarines Sur achieved a harvest of 344 cavans while Fernando Gabuyo of Tondod, San Jose City, Nueva Ecija harvested 345 cavans from their respective one-hectare SL-8 farm.
Former food minister Jesus Tanchanco, meanwhile, said it is about time for the government to look into the re-strengthening of the devolved agricultural extension service in agriculture as he noted that it has become “comparatively ineffective”.
He added that during their time (the Marcos years), the field technicians played a very important role in guiding and assisting farmers in their rice production efforts. He added that it was during those times that the country experienced rice production surplus.
Tanchanco, who is currently the chair of a national businessmen and industrialists association’s committee on agriculture, said he was told that some field technicians who also planted the hybrid variety are the ones who plowed-under (binalasa) their newly transplanted rice plants because of some unusual growths they observed.
Naturally, he said, some alarmed farmers followed suit.
Last Wednesday, during a harvest festival in Barangay Pulo here, they established a picture of boom and boon.
Farmer Renato Linsangan, 64, of Barangay Mangga, this town, attested in his testimony during the festival’s brief program, that he was happy he did not destroy his rice plants at the height of reports, fanned by attestation by many farmers, that what were distributed to them were “defective” and “fake” hybrid seeds.
That time, he said, he noted that some of his young plants were maturing prematurely. He also wanted to plough-under his plants (binalak ko pong balasahin) but changed his mind after consulting with technicians and the outstanding farmers.
“Ngayon po, kapag inihagis ninyo ang platong plastic sa aking bukid, hindi po malalaglag sa lupa dahil sa makapal na bunga ng aking tanim na palay (If you throw a plastic plate now in my farm, it will not fall on the ground because of the plentiful grains in the panicle of my rice plants),” he said.
Another farmer, Alberto Galvez of Barangay Pulo, also in this town, said the evaluation, based on crop cuts in several portions of his farm, indicated that his harvest would be 204 cavans per hectare.
“Tuwang-tuwa po ako sa aning ito (I am very happy about this big harvest from my growing the SL-8 hybrid rice variety),” he said.
Galvez said he was one of those gripped by the “hybrid rice scare” due to the appearance of bolsters (bearing fruit) even while the plants were still very young.
In the harvest festival here Wednesday, the members of an evaluation team said farmer Alberto Galvez will harvest a total of 204 cavans per hectare, based on crop cut in various portions of the field, from his planted SL-8 hybrid rice variety.
The evaluation team is composed of representatives from the office of the provincial agriculturist, Central Luzon State University, National Food Authority, Regional Field Unit of the Department of Agriculture in Central Luzon, and the irrigator’s association.
They disclosed that in the actual harvesting evaluation they conducted in nearby Gapan City, Ariel delos Reyes of Barangay Sto. Cristo Norte, emerged as topnotcher with a harvest of 213 cavans.
They continue their evaluation in other towns and cities in Nueva Ecija as the harvesting activity progresses.
Serafin Santos, provincial agriculturist of Nueva Ecija, said that Nueva Ecija is expected to register an all-time high rice production record. He said results of early harvest in some parts of the province indicated good performances of hybrid rice and inbred rice varieties.
“We are calculating a minimum total harvest of 1.6 million metric tons,” Santos said. “It will top by more than a million tons our harvest last year,” he said during the festival’s program Wednesday.
Converted into cavans of 50 kilos each, the expected harvest will total to 32 million.
Santos attributed the expected unprecedented high harvest due to the increasing average production by the farmers because of their application of new technologies in production, expansion of production areas due to improved irrigation facilities, lowered cost of inputs particularly chemical fertilizers, and favorable weather conditions.
He said the production area for the current dry season cropping totaled to 145,000 hectares compared to last year’s 131,000 hectares. In the last wet season cropping, the total area was 170,000 ha.
The provincial agriculturist is certain that Nueva Ecija will maintain its standing as the No. 1 rice producing province in the country.
Based on the “Rice Figures in the Philippines” (PhilRice, 2007), Nueva Ecija had an average production of 1.13 million metric tons since 2002. It was followed by Isabela, 1.006 mt; Pangasinan, 832,114 mt; Iloilo, 763,893 mt; Cagayan, 548,369 mt, and Tarlac, 469,316 mt.
Santos said that of the total rice area in the province, some 41,000 hectares were planted to hybrid rice, mostly SL-8 variety, and the rest inbred rice varieties.
He said the cold spell and the tolerable 1.7 percent mixture of off-type seeds, which resulted in the appearance of early bolsters, made many farmers uneasy. But those who followed the advise from the teams of experts which monitored the growing of the variety in the farms, in applying remedial measures later confirmed that their plants growth vigorously well.
SL-Agritech Corporation chairman and chief operating officer Henry Lim, who attended the festival, said that the SL-8 rice seeds they produced and sold were proven not really defective but suffered only some initial problems due to climate change and mixtures that were difficult to avoid in seed production.
“The report about the early bolsters were overblown and caused anxiety among the farmers,” Lim said.
Lim expressed sadness about the report that some 1,000 hectares of land planted to SL-8 in Nueva Ecija were destroyed by the farmers because of unwarranted fear that the plants would not perform well.
He announced here that his corporation, which has been described by the father of hybrid rice, Prof. Yuan Long Ping of China, as the pioneer in the breeding of hybrid rice for the tropics, said a better performing hybrid variety than their SL-8 will be introduced soon for commercial production. He said farmer Aida Badong of Barangay San Nicolas, Baao, Camarines Sur achieved a harvest of 344 cavans while Fernando Gabuyo of Tondod, San Jose City, Nueva Ecija harvested 345 cavans from their respective one-hectare SL-8 farm.
Former food minister Jesus Tanchanco, meanwhile, said it is about time for the government to look into the re-strengthening of the devolved agricultural extension service in agriculture as he noted that it has become “comparatively ineffective”.
He added that during their time (the Marcos years), the field technicians played a very important role in guiding and assisting farmers in their rice production efforts. He added that it was during those times that the country experienced rice production surplus.
Tanchanco, who is currently the chair of a national businessmen and industrialists association’s committee on agriculture, said he was told that some field technicians who also planted the hybrid variety are the ones who plowed-under (binalasa) their newly transplanted rice plants because of some unusual growths they observed.
Naturally, he said, some alarmed farmers followed suit.
