Department of Agriculture confident of hitting rice output target

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture (DA) has expressed confidence the country would hit or even surpass its rice production forecast of 17.5 million metric tons (MT) this year.

Barring  any  devastating typhoon going the way of four major rice producing regions in Luzon and the Visayas and an El Niño-triggered drought in the Zamboanga Peninsula, the rice harvest this year  is seen to meet the forecast this year from 2.66 million hectares planted to rice this year.

This was the assessment made by Agriculture Undersecretary for operations Jess Paras on the basis of the latest situation report made by rice program director Dr. Frisco Malabanan.

“Based on current planting reports, certified seeds have already exceeded the 2008 wet season performance and significant production gain is expected in Western Visayas,” Paras said.

It was further reported that there was a marked increase in areas planted to rice during the main planting season as typhoons Dante, Emong and Feria brought in abundant rain but left little damage.

An estimate made by the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) on the total area planted to rice was 2.66 million hectares, much higher than the 1.95 million hectares that yielded 7.4 million metric tons during the dry season planting in the first half of the year.

Since last year, the DA had made it a major thrust to restore irrigation systems that have gone inefficient in past years, build post-harvest facilities particularly dryers,  and  provide hybrid and inbred rice seed at subsidized price to farmers.

Last year, deteriorated irrigation systems providing water to 24,430 hectares were rehabilitated while totally dysfunctional irrigation canals  were restored to irrigate 41,735 hectares.