THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is eyeing to expand the government’s subsidies to farmers to encourage them to use hybrid-rice seeds to boost palay yields, and eventually stabilize the retail prices of rice in the long term.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said he would ask Malacañang to invest more in the production and distribution of hybrid-rice seeds.

“We will also encourage farmers to use organic fertilizers, which are cheaper and promote sustainable agriculture,” said Yap.

He said the DA wants to encourage farmers to use hybrid seeds in as much as 200,000 to 250,000 hectares this year.

Yap noted that while they cost more, hybrid seeds yields up to 7 tons of paddy rice per hectare compared with only 4.5 tons per hectare using certified seeds.

Regular or inbred-rice certified seeds cost only some P1,200 per bag, while hybrid seeds are sold for a much higher P2,400 to P3,400 per bag.

Expanding hybrid seed subsidies for farmers was among the recommendations of the members of an Eminent Persons Group that the DA formed recently to help oversee the implementation of President Arroyo’s P43.7-billion package of intervention measures to achieve food security.

Among the members of the newly formed Eminent Persons Group are former DA secretaries Domingo Panganiban, Carlos Dominguez, Robert Sebastian and Salvador Escudero III, who is now a congressman; former agriculture undersecretary Apolinario Bautista; former administrator Gregorio Tan of the National Food Authority; PhilRice executive director Leocadio Sebastian; Dr. Emil Javier of the National Academy for  Science and Technology, Dr. Leo Gonzalez of  Strive Foundation; and former PhilRice director Dr. Santiago Obien.

Citing DA field reports, Yap said the use of hybrid seeds had increased production by 1.47 metric tons per hectare, with per-hectare yields hitting 6 to 7 MT as against the 4.54 MT average garnered by farmers using only certified seeds.

Yap noted that the value of incremental production for hybrid rice in 2007 totaled P3.384 billion, which means the government had saved the same amount that it would have otherwise spent for rice imports.

Currently, the government provides a P1,000 seed subsidy to farmers who plant hybrid rice.

FLOUR millers have decided to pitch in to help the poor cope with the increase in food prices by launching a program to sell affordable bread in the bagsakan centers of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

THE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) has revealed additional fiscal measures being studied by the government to help Filipinos cope with soaring commodity prices.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is eyeing to expand the government’s subsidies to farmers to encourage them to use hybrid-rice seeds to boost palay yields, and eventually stabilize the retail prices of rice in the long term.

THE Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is cool to the proposal creating a separate Office of the Philippine Trade Representative (OPTR) and just called for the strengthening of its international trade-relations unit instead.

MANILA Water officials are insisting on getting a P195-million development cost refund for the frozen P2-billion Carmen bulk-water project, originally seen as a medium-term answer to the perennial water shortage problem in Metro Cebu.

IN 1970, a senator from the United States organized the first Earth Day. His vision was a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment.