The Department of Agriculture (DA) will plant hybrid rice seeds in 1 million hectares of irrigated lands starting next year in its bid to achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2019.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the government will identify 10 initial areas with 1,000 hectares of irrigated land under the Masaganang Ani (MA) 6000 program.
“The DA is positive that it can be done. We are now in the process of finalizing the MA 6000 program, which will initially target 1 million hectares of irrigated areas,” Piñol told reporters in a news briefing on Tuesday.
“These areas will be supported with hybrid-rice seeds, sufficient fertilizer, and efficient irrigation system and mechanization,” he added.
Under the MA 6000 program, Piñol said they will only use 1 million hectares of the 1.3 million hectares of irrigated lands in the country, according to the latest report National Irrigation Administration (NIA) report.
“The purpose of the Masaganang Ani 6000 is to address the issues that would contribute to productivity. It’s the existing irrigated area that we are going to utilize, we are not expanding,” he said.
The DA said it is eyeing to improve the national average rice production to 6 metric tons (MT) per hectare from the current 3.9 MT per hectare. Citing farmers’ testimonies, Piñol said they are able to produce more than the national average yield by planting hybrid rice seeds in areas with proper irrigation system and efficient farm machines.
“So we are in the process of coming up with a system on how we are going to implement the MA 6000 program and how we are going to extend the distribution of hyrbid-rice seeds, fertilizers, as well as the needed pest control materials,” he said.
“If we can perfect that program then we can achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2019,” Piñol added.
Increasing the productivity of the 1 million hectare areas targeted under the MA 6000 program by 2 MT per ha. would increase annual rice output by 2.4 million metric tons (MMT) and wipe out imports.
“Considering that the areas being targeted are irrigated, the increase in rice output could reach 2.4 MMT.
“We are currently short of 1.8 MMT of rice, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO],” Piñol said.
Citing the FAO data, he said farmers lose about 20 percent of their harvest during the milling of rice due to the use of inefficient machines.
“The old rice mills have a recovery rate of 60 percent against the 65 percent recovery rate of new rice mills, so that’s 5 percent being wasted,” he said.
“Our intention is really to modernize the post-harvest facilities, hoping that at least we can cut post-harvest losses to as low as 10 percent,” Piñol added.