Floating Tiller Makes Farming Easy
These always happen in the fields situated at the low-lying areas of Aurora. These fields are always flooded that’s why these are called laboy, bahay-tubig or tubigan. It’s very hard to prepare these “floating fields”, and farmers are frustrated with the very low yield they usually get despite all their efforts until the floating tiller was developed.
One of the farmers who first used the floating tiller was Elias Lachica. This 45-year old PhilRice farmer-cooperator from Barangay Bacong, San Luis, Aurora was asked to record data on its use and he was impressed with the way it works.
To spare himself and his fellow farmers from the drudgery of tilling laboy with a hand tractor and to earn extra money at the same time, he acquired a floating tiller in 2006 through the Department of Agriculture-PhilRice farm equipment loan.
Using the floating tiller, he prepares fields for P1,200 per hectare a day including fuel cost and food. His service charge is actually cheap because farmers there usually pay custom service providers who still use hand tractors at P3,600 to P4,800. His yield also doubled; he now harvests 50 cavans from his 1-hectare field.
Like Elias, Jessie Sano also got interested in the floating tiller. He had been using hand tractor and carabao for 27 years until he acquired a floating tiller in December 2006. His yield also increased; on the average, he harvests 50 cavans per hectare and his highest yield was 80 cavans per hectare. Even women can easily use the floating tiller. In fact, Jessie’s wife, Francisca, uses it to help her husband and lessen their expenses on custom service. And for these reasons, they were able to send their children to school and five of them have already finished college.
The development of the floating tiller is really a big help for farmers. If not for this, they wouldn’t be able to obtain higher yields despite all their efforts.
