October 12, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Rice farmer-beneficiaries will get more high-yielding seeds from the government in the current cropping season to help them recover from the ill effects of extreme weather and boost their productivity.
Department of Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. recently issued Memorandum Order 41 to update the unified guidelines for the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) and DA-National Rice Program (NRP)-certified inbred seed distribution.
Under the new guidelines, rice farmer-beneficiaries can now receive enough inbred seeds to cover up to 10 hectares of land from the previous guideline of only up to five hectares.
This is “in view of the availability of additional supply of certified inbred seeds, the need to provide support for farmers to recover from the ill effects of El Nino and ensure a wider rice area to be planted,” Tiu Laurel said.
The PhilRice RCEF–Program Management Office (PMO) told The STAR that qualified rice farmers can get up to 20 bags of inbred certified seeds (20 kilograms each), depending on their registered landholding in the government’s database.
The maximum amount of 20 bags is sufficient to cover 10 hectares of rice farm, according to the PhilRice unit.
The PhilRice RCEF-PMO said the higher volume of seed support would allow farmer beneficiaries to recover from low yields they experienced in previous planting season due to El Niño and La Niña.
“The move is seen to boost farmers’ yields and the country’s rice production as a whole, as more rice areas can now be planted with high-quality seeds,” the PhilRice unit said.
Under the previous guidelines, the allowable seed support for qualified farmers is up to 10 bags or equivalent to five hectares only. This forces some farmers to either buy additional seeds for their areas not covered by the support or use home-saved seeds that do not guarantee high yield, PhilRice explained.
PhilRice said it has allocated 1.6 million bags of inbred certified seeds and additional supply of more than 251,000 bags to cater the additional hectarage that would be covered by the 2025 dry season RCEF and DA-NRP inbred seed distribution.
The additional supply was made available through the improvements seen in the yields of the RCEF seed program’s partner seed growers after El Niño, PhilRice said.
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