SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ – Officials of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Phil- Rice) here warned farmers against rice seeds sellers who are passing off ordinary rice seeds as hybrid seeds and are using faked bags bearing the agency’s name and logo to induce confidence for the commodity they are selling.
“They are making big money for their activity. They are selling the seeds at P4,000 to P6,000 per 20-kilogram
bag,” Dr. Eufemio Rasco Jr., PhilRice executive director, said about this anomaly. “They are not only making big money out of it but also sabotaging efforts to increase rice production,” he said.
Rasco said the certified seeds used by the farmers for planting have a government approved price of P1,200
per 40-kg bag. The use of hybrid rice seeds for commercial planting is known to increase yield by at least 15 percent. There were reported cases that with the use of hybrid rice seed, a number of farmers had obtained yields of more than 300 cavans per hectare.
Farmer Aida Payumo of San Nicolas, Camarines Sur obtained a yield of 344 cavans, Severino Payumo of
Barangay Buliran, Cabanatuan City got a 345.6 cavans harvest in 2009 and Eduardo Policarpio of Barangay Palagay, also in Cabanatuan City, 316 cavans.
Mention of hybrid rice seed has become a magnet for farmers in the hope of obtaining higher rice yield. It has also become a source for anomaly for scheming profiteers. “We already requested the NBI (National Bureau
of Investigation) to investigate this anomaly,” Rasco said.
Initial investigation, however, proved that the address used by the sellers as their office was non-existent.
Artemio Vasallo, chief of PhilRice’s business development division, said that the bag being used by the gypsters looked similar to the bags their agency is using for selling rice seeds to the farmers.
“It bears the name and logo of PhilRice and the wordings we used for our bags,” Vasallo said. “We are investigating how they were able to acquire such a big number of bags that we are exclusively using,” he added.
The two PhilRice officials called on the farmers to report what they know of this anomaly and help them identify
the perpetrators to put a halt to this shenanigan.
