Presidential sisters grace hybrid rice festival in NE

ALIAGA, Nueva Ecija, Philippines -  President Aquino’s elder sisters Maria Elena “Balsy” Aquino Cruz and Pinky Aquino Abellada, were special guests at the hybrid rice harvest festival held here last April 15. They received a warm welcome from Mayor Marcial Vargas and his wife, Vice Mayor Elizabeth Vargas, and officials of SL Agritech Corp. led by Henry Lim, chairman and CEO of the firm. 

Addressing a crowd  of over 300, mostly rice farmers from this town and neighboring municipalities, Cruz said she was surprised to learn that farmers get a much bigger harvest and earn a much higher income by planting the high-yielding hybrid rice variety.

“Ngayon ko lamang nalaman at personal na nakita ang kaibahan sa pagtatanim ng inbred variety at hybrid rice variety. Na sa hybrid,  mahigit kalahati o triple ang laki ng inaani kumpara nga sa inbred variety. Kaya naman pala kayong mga hybrid rice farmers ay masasaya sa laki ng inyong mga produksyon at kinikita sa pagtatanim ng hybrid rice,” Cruz said, adding that she will inform the President of their demands to provide assistance to rice farmers in a more massive scale to further improve their living standards.

Also present at the affair, which was held near the 22-hectare hybrid rice farm of Rolando Acain, were National Food Authority (NFA) Administrator Lito Banayo; director Paz Mones of the Department of Agriculture-Region III; Serafin Santos, provincial agriculturist who represented Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali; S. Tarigan of Indonesia’s agriculture agency PT Sang Hyang Seri; Pete Prado, Nixon Kua and Ruben Miranda, acting executive director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).

The festival, sponsored by SL Agritech, has for its theme “Kayamanan sa Palayan.” It was highlighted by the testimonies of hybrid rice farmers Sonny Aguilar of Mangatarem, Pangasinan; Bernardo Navarro and Jerry Tolentino of Aliaga, Benigno Pascua of Guimba; Sotero Cruz Gapac, Sta. Rosa, and Severino Payumo of Cabanatuan City. Their harvest per hectare, using the SL-8H seeds, averaged 250 cavans. Payumo’s record harvest was 345.6 cavans per hectare.

In his brief talk, Lim expressed optimism that “if majority of our traditional farmers will go hybrid, we can expect a bumper harvest of palay in the coming years and ensure sufficiency in our rice supply.”

“Our country’s best option to become self-sufficient in rice is hybrid rice and its accompanying technology,” he said, adding that in China, more than 60 percent of its rice lands are planted to hybrid rice. With over 1.3 billion people to feed, China is not only self-sufficient in rice but it has also enough for export, he added.

SL Agritech is sponsoring rice harvest festivals all over the country since 2006, to promote the benefit of hybrid rice technology.

This harvest season, it has organized five harvest festivals – in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija; Naujan, Oriental Mindoro; Bago City in Negros Occidental; La Paz, Tarlac; and in Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro.