ILOILO – The provincial government hopes to maximize rice production and secure its supply through the hybrid rice program of the national government.
With the program, Iloilo could expect 60,000 bags of hybrid rice seeds, which could cover 60,000 hectares of farmland or one bag per hectare. This could help the province achieve its target of increasing its rice production to 5.5 metric tons next year from the current production of 3.5 metric tons per hectare.
Provincial Agriculture Office (PAO) head Dr. Ildefonso Toledo said Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr. and Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 6 executive director Dennis Arpia are currently working on how Iloilo could avail itself of the program.
“Kon mabulig ang DA kag i-release ang allocation nga 60,000 bags, then we will be planting 60,000 hectares,” said Toledo, adding that he is hopeful that the province would be given allocation by late this year or early next year.
The province has 137,000 hectares of farmland, of which around 40,000 are irrigated; the rest are rain-fed.
A Scale Up program is also ongoing for rainfed farmlands, wherein the provincial government will establish small-scale irrigation projects to secure water sources.
“Meaning, we have abundant and sufficient land area nga puede tanuman sang hybrid,” said Toledo, adding that farmers who wish to venture into hybrid rice farming would be given technical assistance, as included in the terms and conditions with the winning bidder.
Aside from that, Toledo said farmers could save more on the cost of farm inputs with hybrid rice; they may opt not to rely on chemical fertilizers and instead explore other sources, such as biofertilizers that are cheaper.
Currently, 3,000 hectares of farmland in the province are planted with hybrid rice for the first cropping.
This is under Defensor’s P30-million allotment for implementing the Provincial Agriculture and Fisheries Extension Systems (PAFES). It aims to cater to more than 6,000 hectares of rice areas in the province that are no longer included in the target sites of the DA-6’ hybridization program this year.
Under the program, each qualified farmer could receive one bag of hybrid seeds for every hectare of rice land. However, a farmer could only avail himself a maximum of two bags.
Toledo also said Iloilo province is 163 percent rice self-sufficient after it achieved the 2022 target of one million metric tons of harvest production.
This year, the province targets exceeding the 2022 rice output by at least 100,000 metric tons./PN
