Hybrid rice volume too little to supply entire RP farmlands

Despite its high yielding capacity, hybrid rice is still underutilized by the country’s rice farmers as the volume of its seedlings produced locally cannot support the need of the entire hectarage of farmlands in the country.

 The Department of Agriculture has since been encouraging Filipino farmers to shift to hybrid varieties of rice as the country attempts to imitate China’s program for rice self-sufficiency.

The Department has approved a subsidy program to promote higher-yielding hybrid seeds as part of government efforts to attain rice self-sufficiency by 2010.

However, because the hybrid rice technology is still new in the country having been started only last 2000; the rice seedlings produced by private companies and cooperatives are still insufficient to support the need of farmers, said Department for Agriculture Region 7 officer in-charge for the Crops Sector Jorge Paculba.

Pioneered by China, hybrids are bred by crossing three genetically different varieties to produce a rice plant that grows faster and produces yields of up to 20 percent higher.

Farmers however need to buy new seeds to plant every year, because using seeds from the previous hybrid crop are unreliable.

But while they cost more, hybrid seeds yield up to seven tons of paddy rice per hectare (2.47 acres) compared to only 4.5 tons a hectare using so-called certified seed or inbred seeds conventionally utilized by our Filipino farmers, he discussed.

Paculba said that right now in Cebu, only a few of our farmers have started using hybrid rice in their lands.

Among the municipalities that have started to plant hybrid rice include: Asturias, Balamban, Toledo, Talisay, Minglanilla, Carcar and Argao.

Paculba said that currently around 240 bags of hybrid rice seedlings has been distributed in the province and around 240 hectares of land has been planted by this rice variety.

He said that right now, only a few private companies are into the production of hybrid rice seedlings and only two cooperatives based in Davao and Cagayan de Oro which are funded by the government are producing hybrid rice varieties such as M1, M7, M4, SL-8, among others.

He said that because there is insufficient supply of hybrid rice seedlings to cover the more than 2, 000 hectares of rice land, they have been urging provinces and municipalities from Central Visayas to produce their own hybrid rice seedlings so they can sustain their needs.

Paculba said that Bohol once tried producing their own hybrid rice variety but they have stopped because of the huge operating expenses.

He said that in producing hybrid seeds, an investor may need around P40, 000 of capital per hectare to start this kind of operation.

But this is much more higher compared to the P30, 000 per hectare that it will take to produce certified rice seedlings or inbreed variety.

Central Visayas has been considered as the ninth top rice producing region with a total production of 199, 420 metric tons of rice contributing around 2. 96 percent to the whole country’s rice supply. – Rhia de Pablo