Agriculture Business Week

Weather has a big impact on farming. So in order for farmers in low-lying areas with extreme weather conditions to increase their yields, they should adopt appropriate farm technologies to mitigate adverse effects of weather on the crop.

One appropriate technology is PalayCheck, and a farmer in a low-lying area obtained a high yield by adopting it. She is 48-year-old Trinidad Billote of Tagabaca, Butuan City, Agusan Del Norte.

At that time, PalayCheck was being introduced in Tagabaca through the PhilRice-JICA Technical Cooperation Project 3 (TCP 3) and she became one of its farmers-partner. As a farmer-partner, half of her 2-hecatre farm was used as a technology demonstration farm of the TCP 3.

She followed PalayCheck in hopes that it would enable her to increase her yield despite the wet and very wet cropping seasons in the province, and she had been right. With PalayCheck, she got an average yield of 6.7 t/ha, whereas before her yield was 4 t/ha at most.

But why that low? Billote said that besides the unfavorable weather in the province, another reason was her improper farm practices such as very high seeding rate, improper fertilizer application, negligence on land preparation and crop establishment, and wrong pest management.

Billote said that she used to allot 85 kg of seeds per hectare so that she would still had enough seedlings when flood came. What she did not know then was that seeding rate was more than double of the recommended seeding rate in the PalayCheck.

“When I followed the 40-kilogram-perhectare seeding rate in PalayCheck, I saved on the cost of seeds, yet I did not encounter any problem at all,” she said.

Regarding fertilizer application, she admitted that she failed to supply the nutrients her rice plants needed due to financial constraints. She was only able to apply a bag each of 14-14-14, urea, and ammonium sulfate 45 days after transplanting.

“I did not have much money to spend for fertilizer and other farm inputs. But with PalayCheck, I can obtain maximum yield at a lesser cost,” she said.

She also admitted that she used to apply all the pesticide she bought so as not to waste any of it. But instead of controlling rice pests, the infestation got worst. “I even cried when I learned that the pesticide I sprayed had no effect on stemborers. The pests almost wiped out my field,” she said.

“When I followed PalayCheck, I have learned to address my farm problems without sacrificing my yield,” she added.

Now, she applies PalayCheck to her entire farm, and other farmers in their community adopted it, too. In addition, the Tagabaca Farmers’ Association is also convinced that PalayCheck is indeed helpful in increasing productivity and improving the economic condition of farmers.

By : Myriam Garcia-Layaoen