Agriculture Business Week

The harvesting and drying methods contribute much to the volume of rice in the market.

In our trip to Occidental Mindoro in the second week of November last year, we noticed that farmers do not thresh right after cutting their rice crop. They leave these in the field for some time before threshing, following their own techniques.

Even if the variety they use may not be shattering, one can expect a good number of grains to fall on the ground after a while, causing tremendous grain losses in the long run. One reason for this is the lack of mechanical threshers.

Enterprising individuals with some capital may as well look at this situation as a business opportunity. Mobile custom threshing may very well be a good business as many farmers do not have the means to buy their own. In the end, custom threshing would be the solution for the delayed threshing of palay and at the same time prevent grain losses.

We also noticed that it is not only in Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan where farmers and traders dry palay on the road. Their counterparts in Occidental Mindoro are very much like them.

At the Guimba-Rosales road, which connects Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan, farmers and traders are already up as early as 5 o’clock in the morning, clearing the portion of the road where they are going to dry their palay. As soon as the sun becomes visible, farmers and traders’ workers are already pouring their grains on the road.

In Occidental Mindoro, particularly the stretch from Abra de hog to Sablayan towns, farmers and traders pile their sacks of palay along the road, rain or shine. At night, the pile of palay is covered with tarpaulin to prevent it from getting wet if ever it rains. Just like their counterparts in Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan, they appropriate portions of the highway for drying palay.

What’s appalling about this practice is that too much grain is lost whenever vehicles pass over the grains. The highway was built for the use of motorists, not for drying grains. It is for this reason that owners pay a road tax during the registration of motor vehicles, except kuliglig and large tractors.

Now, the question is, shouldn’t there be a law imposing road tax on large tractors and kuliglig used as transport vehicle?