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Archive for Rice

Former Electrician Becomes A Top Yielder

From 1983 TO 1989, Engracio Martin of Brgy. Pag-asa, Rizal, Nueva Ecija worked in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as an electrician. Even if his initial salary was not much, $380 a month with food allowance in the first three years, it even went down to $320 in the next three years.

Realizing that his employer only wanted to take advantage of the unemployment rate in the Philippines by offering lower salary, he finally decided to go home even if he did not have any definite plan for the future. He was certain that he would be able to manage his financial situation in no time at all. For one thing, he had saved some money from his meager salary and second, since he has a college degree in agriculture from the Sabani State Agricultural College in Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija, he could venture into farming.

When he went home, he bought a tricycle and used it as a public conveyance vehicle. It did not take long before someone mortgaged a hectare of rice land to him for P30,000 and that was the start of his farming. Three years later, an additional 7,000 sq. m. was mortgaged to him again. He drove his tricycle in the mornings and worked in the farm in the afternoons so he would be able to provide well for his family.

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Fil-Am Foods’ Farmers Edge Inaugurates New Feedmill with Senator Mar Roxas

In the bag of feed comes a handful of hope for Mindanao to rise to its full potential. Senator Mar Roxas, champion of real people’s real concern takes pride in bagging a hog feed during the inauguration of Pilmico Foods Corporation’s new feed mill facility at Kiwalan, Iligan City last September 4, 2008.

In his speech during the inauguration, he said, “There is hope in Mindanao”, words from a senator who envisions economic development in the south.

Also, in his brief TV interview he told ABS-CBN that what is, lacking in Mindanao is capital and investors to establish business in the area thereby creating more jobs, more income for the people, and if Mindanao is to have ecozone free port like what Subic and Clark have then this would be an added incentive to the investors to put up business.

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Nationwide Info Caravan To Aid Farmers With Farm Crisis

Rice farmers can now avail themselves of `clinical advice’ on different rice production problems and issues as the Department of Agriculture (DA) launches a series of information caravans with technokliniks (consultation with rice experts) in strategic rice areas all over the country starting August this year.

According to DA Secretary Arthur C. Yap, the info caravan aims to increase farmers’ awareness of and access to technologies and development programs designed to increase their productivity in the midst of increasing input prices.

Through the technoklinik, rice experts from the different DA-attached agencies convene with farmers to personally provide answers to their rice related problems and queries.

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Dingle Farmers Adopt Promising Lines for Direct Seedings

Even before the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) could release a variety tested nationwide for commercial production, innovative farmers in Dingle, Iloilo have already planted on a large-scale four promising PhilRice lines for direct seeding.

The new lines were not yet included in the National Cooperative Tests (NCT), which study the field performance of promising rice lines nationwide, and whose results become the bases for recommending the release of new varieties. On the contrary, the new lines were part of 12 breeding lines from PhilRice that were being tested in a regional on-farm direct seeding trial at the experimental field of Western Visayas Integrated Agriculture Research Center (WESVIARC) in Jaro, Iloilo. The trial, which started in the 2007 dry season, is a collaborative project of PhilRice and WESVIARC.

Dr. Norvie L. Manigbas, lead scientist of the project, said five of the 12 breeding lines were selected and brought to a farmer’s field for further testing. Still tagged in coded numbers, the selected lines PR34159-13-1, PR31952-12-BB, PR35467-3-1-1-2-1, PR34712-101-1-3-2, and PR32220-16-13-1-2 were direct seeded in rows during the 2007 wet season (May to August) in the field of Virgilio “Butsoy” Guanga in Brgy. Pandan, Dingle.

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Use Less Water and Still Get Good Harvest

Many rice farmers thing that they would be able to harvest more by bringing in more water to their fields. What farmers do not know is that aside from the high cost of irrigation water, continuous flooding also cause many things.

Experts say that from land preparation to the last irrigation, one square meter of rice field that usually yields 0.5 to 0.75 kg of rice uses around 2,000 liters or 10 drums of water. However, when farmers continuously flood their fields, 15 to 20 drums of water are used.

Farmers do not know that continuous flooding and a water level in the field higher than 7 cm results in too much percolation, seepage, and even runoff, experts say. It also causes delayed growth and reduced tillering because the reduced oxygen level in the root zone impedes root development.

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PhilRice is Well Worth the Investment

As a public R&D (research and development) investment, the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is well worth it, according to a team of experts who made an external review of the Institute’s impact.

Consisting of retired International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Deputy Director General Dr. Fernando A. Bernardo, former UP Mindanao Chancellor Dr. Rogelio V Cuyno, Dr. Louie A. Divinagracia, and Dr. Mercedita A, Sombilla, the team was commissioned by the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) to conduct the impact evaluation last year.

In their report, the team said that PhilRice started to make an impact even at the early stage of its development “without waiting for new technological innovations in its first six to seven years of existence to get going in extension, knowledge dissemination and techno transfer activities.”

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What PhilRice Is Doing About Climate Change

Climate Change is for real and it would lead to greater variability of rainfall, resulting in increased frequency of extreme events like flash floods, or more and longer dry spells due to high temperature.

Experts have predicted that at the worse, rainfall in 2050 will increase by 20 percent compared to the global average from 1961 to 1990 and the sea level will rise. This means that flooding would be the problem and not drought.

Even at present, typhoons are frequently occurring from July to December, bringing in strong winds and excess water that result in continuous flooding of rice fields. In the Philippines, 10 to 40 percent of the rice area during this period is damaged by flashfloods, especially in Nueva Ecija, Isabela, Cagayan, Pangasinan, Bulacan, Pampanga, Camarines Sur, Occidental Mindoro, Tarlac, and Nueva Vizcaya.

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UPLB Promotes Rice-Duck Growing Module

An innovative agricultural program from UP Los Banos is now benefiting thousands of farmers.

This is the “Agricultural Systems Cluster (ASC) Rice-Duck Model” started in 2005. The development program is being implemented by the ASC of the college of agriculture in partnership with the offices of provincial veterinarians, municipal agriculturists and farmer associations.

Today, the program involves the participation of 100 farmer co-operators in four rice-duck zones with pilot sites in Laguna, particularly in Victoria, Sta. Cruz, Siniloan and San Pablo City.

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Rice : The Birth of Matatag Lines

We were reading the newly published “An External Review of PhilRice Impact”, and we came across an item which relates the story on how Matatag varieties came about. The Matatag varieties are resistant to rice tungro disease, one of the major diseases that could cause up to 60 percent to 91 percent yield losses. We thought readers of this column might be interested to know the story.

Matatag varieties became popular in Mindanao even before the first variety was approved by the Philippine Seed Board in 2000, a few years before that serious tungro outbreaks occurred in North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Davao del Norte, Bukidnon, Lanao del Norte, and Zamboanga del Sur.

At that time, PhilRice-Midsayap was conducting field trials of IRRI’s first rice tungro disease line, IR 71031-4-5-5-1. Trials in farmers’ fields in 1998 yielded 3.5-4.8 tons a hectare. Seed samples of IR 71031-4-5-5-1 and another resistant line of IRRI, IR69726-116-1-3, were given to farmers during their graduation in a farmers’ field school on rice tungro disease management. PhilRice baptized the two lines as Matatag lines 1 and 2.

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Classification of Rice Quality in the Market in the Offing

Mislabeling of milled rice in the market us Sinandomeng or IR64 leads consumers to believe that they are, buying rice of good texture and eating quality. Although there are instances when consumers are satisfied with what they bought, they are often disgruntled with these as these turned to be hard and fluffy when cooked.

The reason for this is that even as millertraders normally do not attain the right mix of quality rice, they still label them as Sinandomeng or IR64, two popular brands of rice in the market that command higher prices. Normally, millertraders mix the grains of different varieties with seemingly similar physical attributes like size and appearance. However, they do not have a way of determining the amylose content of their grains. Their primary goal is just to get as much profits as they could.

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