The Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) vowed to use the funds it will receive under the rice trade liberalization law to raise farm mechanization level to 4 horsepower per hectare (hp/ha) by 2024.
PhilMech Applied Communication Division Chief Rodolfo P. Estigoy said the attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA) wants to increase the current 2.31 hp/ha mechanization rate in six years.
Estigoy said this will be made possible by the P5-billion subsidy that PhilMech would receive under Republic Act (RA) 11203. The money, he said, would be used to grant equipment to farmers in 57 major rice-producing provinces.
“We are optimistic that we will reach the 4 hp/ha farm mechanization level after six years,” he said in an interview with the BusinessMirror on Sunday.
Under the RA 11203 or the rice trade liberalization law, PhilMech would receive P5 billion or half of the P10-billion rice competitiveness enhancement fund (RCEF).
The allocation is aimed at hiking the mechanization level of rice farmers by giving them farm equipment.
Estigoy said PhilMech is planning to distribute “packages of technology” to at least 200 municipalities this year and is targeting to cover 1,200 municipalities and cities over the next six years.
The package of technology that would be provided to farmers’ organizations, cooperatives, and irrigators’ associations would include farm equipment that they could use for land preparation and even for milling and drying, according to Estigoy.
He said some of the equipment that may be distributed to farmers include tractors, mechanical transplanter, combined harvester, dryers and even rice mills.
PhilMech expects to start distributing equipment to farmers by the fourth quarter of the year. Estigoy said it would take time for the agency to procure the equipment given the procurement rules that it must observe.
“The equipment will be distributed to farmers in time for the second rice cropping season or the main cropping season,” Estigoy added.
He said PhilMech would form a separate project implementation team that would focus on fulfilling the agency’s role under RA 11203. The agency will hire at least 50 people to form the team.
Estigoy also said PhilMech may divide the Philippines into five zones to fast-track the distribution of farm machinery: Luzon A and B, the Visayas, Mindanao A and B.
RA 11203 converted the quantitative restrictions (QR) on rice into tariffs. It also mandated the government to set up the RCEF which would consist of tariffs collected from rice imports. The Philippines scrapped the non-tariff measure after more than two decades when the special waiver on the special treatment on rice lapsed on July 1, 2017.
Economic managers pushed for the removal of the rice QR as the non-tariff measure made milled rice more expensive. They projected that the scrapping of the QR would slash rice prices by as much as P7 per kilogram.
Image credits: www.philrice.gov.ph