DA urges farmers to use hybrid seeds
The Department of Agriculture 6 strongly encourages farmers in the region to use hybrid rice to increase rice productivity.
"Our hybrid rice commercialization program stays and in fact, we are still encouraging farmers in irrigated areas to use the hybrid seeds. This is because it has been proven that with hybrid seeds the yield is higher or the return of investment is higher despite that this is expensive and labor intensive as compared to certified seeds", said DA 6 Regional Director Jindra Linda Demeterio.
Demo sites, Demeterio said, were likewise encouraged to farmers for them to see the upbeat in this kind of technology.
The DA 6 is also considering another important innovation to raise the level of production in the region that is to include rain-fe d places in their program areas. These are areas or clusters where the department intervenes with assistance.
"I requested our Central Office to allow us to include in our program areas the rain-fed because we have a huge rain-fed area nga kanubo sg production and this is also the area that we have less affluent farmers", Demeterio said, adding, "so instead of just dedicating to our clusters we're opening it initially in rain-fed areas."
The innovation, according to Demeterio is in consonance with the department's goal to increase productivity and income of the rural farmers and fisherfolks. The assistance will include organic fertilizer and close supervision and technical assistance to farmers. The effort will be done together with the other agencies under the DA family.
"We are now looking at areas where we have active farmer associations because we want to do this in partnership with the farmers so that they will work as a group to take advantage of the economies of scale. We will go to these clusters as a team - the DA family like the National Food Authority (NFA) for marketing and other agencies for other forms of interventions", Demeterio said.
Recently, Agriculture Secretary Domingo Panganiban has instructed all its regional field units to use the basic package of technologies in agriculture to increase productivity as he noticed many farmers still use the old method in growing rice, corn and other crops.
In line with this he ordered all the DA's RFU heads to revitalize agriculture training programs and to support public and private farmers' organizations to revise farming techniques in the field level.
"We should adopt new techniques that will contribute in productivity and competitiveness for our products to help alleviate the living conditions of the poor families in rural areas, especially if there is increase in production," Panganiban said.
(PIA)