Government trims rice production target

Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said the rice production target this year under the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani or GMA Rice Program will be trimmed to a range of 14.2 million metric tons (MT) to 14.5 million MT.

The revised target is 700,000 MT lower than the Department of Agriculture’s original production target of 14.9 million MT which would have made the country 97-percent self-sufficient in rice.

The lower target will be finalized next week, Yap said, adding that at 14.3 million MT the country still be 93 percent to 94-percent self-sufficient in rice.

Yap said the reduction is not due to budgetary constraints. "The revisions have something to do with the targeted lands we want converted and planted to hybrid certified seeds," said Yap.

In a previous interview, Francisco Malabanan, director of the GMA rice program, said the program cannot meet this year’s target because government lacks funds to provide the required domestic support for farmers.

For this year, the amount needed to provide subsidized hybrid rice seeds to farmers has been set at P551 million.

The government is encouraging the use of the higher-yielding hybrid rice seeds which could produce as high as 12 MT per hectare compared to the average yield of only 3.5 MT per hectare using traditional rice seeds.

Malabanan said so far, only P150 million was released by the DA, with an additional P80 million still being processed for disbursement.

"It will be difficult to achieve our targets without the corresponding budgetary support and so it was decided to scale down the production target," said Malabanan.

Malabanan said because of inadequate funds to bankroll the program only 125,000 hectares have been planted to higher-yielding hybrid rice seeds.

The DA had targeted a total of 200,000 hectares of rice fields to be planted to hybrid rice seeds.

Earlier, Leocadio Sebastian, executive director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice) said the original target of 200,000 hectares for the wet cropping season from May to October this year, may have to be downsized to just 150,000 hectares based on the government’s current distribution rate of hybrid rice seeds.

He said Philrice has so far farmed out only 150,000 bags of hybrid seeds to different rice-producing areas in the country. Each 20-kilo bag is just enough to seed one hectare of rice field.

Philrice officials said farmers, while aware of the benefits of planting hybrid rice, find it expensive to procure the seeds, even at the hefty subsidy of 50 percent.

Sebastian said farmers can buy hybrid seeds through Philrice at the subsidized rate of P1,200 per bag. The unsubsidized price is P2,400 per bag.

On the other hand, a 40-kilo bag of regular rice seeds costs only about P450 per bag.

Sebastian said about 60,000 bags of seeds are still available at Philrice, but there have been no recent orders or takers. He noted that planting of the wet season crop should be completed not later than August for farmers to be able to harvest by the end of the year.

While government may be hard-pressed to meet this year’s targets, 2005 could prove to be more difficult, said Sebastian.

The DA’s budget this year hasn’t been passed by Congress. Thus, the 2003 budget is being re-enacted and this means the P1.7- billion budget for the GMA Rice Program for 2003 has been maintained. However, only P551 million was actually released. Aside from distribution of hybrid seeds, the GMA rice program includes a credit component which is also likely to suffer.