Arroyo to harvest hybrid rice in Ecija

Sometime late last year, President Arroyo led in the ceremonial planting of hybrid rice in Isabela.

This time, she will lead in the harvest of hybrid rice in Nueva Ecija.

Both activities symbolize strong political will that the Arroyo administration is mustering to solve once and for all the problem of rice insufficiency in the country.

The hybrid rice harvest will take place at the central experiment station in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, of the Philippine Rice Research Institute, which was recently placed under the Office of the President.

The occasion is the three-day 15th National Rice R&D Conference which kicks off today.

Tomorrow, President Arroyo will harvest the hybrid rice on the PhilRice experimental farm, lay the cornerstone of the institute’s Seed Production and Health Laboratory, and administer the oath of office of newly appointed members of the PhilRice board.

Dr. Leocadio Sebastian, PhilRice executive director, said the theme of this year’s rice R&D conference is "Appropriate Technologies, Excellent Service…Bountiful Harvest."

The institute and the PhilRice-coordinated Rice R&D Network, which is composed of 56 government academic and research institutions and agencies, will present their accomplishments, technologies and tools for increasing productivity, and partnerships and approaches in promoting technologies.

Hybrid rice is one of the key components of the One Million Jobs program charted by the Arroyo administration to create more rural agricultural jobs.

First, what is hybrid rice?

A hybrid rice variety is the product of crossing two genetically different lines. Two superior parent lines are crossed to get their best characteristics which are combined in the hybrid plant.

At present, hybrid rice is the only available genetic tool for increasing the yield potential of rice over the current high-yielding varieties (HYVs), whose yields appear to have stopped increasing.

Through PhilRice’s research activities, the hybrid rice technology has been demonstrated to increase yields by an average of 15 to 25 percent over the best modern varieties nationwide.

On the average, a farmer can get an additional 779 kilograms of palay per hectare using the hybrid "Magat" (the first to be developed in the country) and 1,272 kg of palay per hectare using the hybrid "Mestizo," as compared with planting the best and popular conventional varieties.

The highest yield obtained in PhilRice trials came from "Mestizo" at 12 tons per hectare in Cagayan and Bohol.

Thus, hybrid rice holds the key to sufficiency in this commodity.

Toward this end, President Arroyo issued last March 4 Executive Order (EO) 76 transferring PhilRice to the Office of the President. Until the issuance, PhilRice was attached to the Department of Agriculture.

In particular, the President transferred PhilRice to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on One Million Jobs headed by Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr., as PhilRice BOT chairman, and allocated P450 million for the hybrid program from the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Program budget.

EO 76 also stipulates that the Department of Budget and Management will appropriate the needed budget for the hybrid rice program up to 2004.

It further strengthens Administrative Order 25, which President Arroyo issued last Dec. 12, accelerating the government’s program on the hybrid rice technology.