TO help boost rice production, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) is set to finally implement the new dry season-focused cropping calendar this year.
“We will start the actual implementation this October,” NIA Administrator Eddie G. Guillen told reporters in an interview with reporters in Malacañang last Tuesday.
Under the proposed cropping calendar, the planting of crops will be scheduled during the dry season instead of the wet season.
“Because when it is the dry season, there is a higher yield. Second, there is also no typhoon. The only challenge there is we are able to provide sufficient irrigation. For those areas, which are not irrigated, we can plan corn,” Guillen said.
He said 99 percent of the country already has irrigation.
Guillen said they are also using the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) planting strategy to reduce water usage during the dry season.
The NIA chief said President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is pushing for changing the cropping season, a move backed by the results of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). This showed rice production rose by 1.1 percent and corn production by 5.9 percent last February despite the low rainfall caused by El Niño.
“This is what our President wants. To boost our yield and production. So he said we should study if there could be two cropping seasons so that the rainy season will be just a bonus [planting period]. That is the plan of the NIA,” Guillen said.
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