THE Department of Agriculture (DA) projects that palay harvest for January to June may exceed 7.1 million metric tons (MMT).

The DA Rice Action Center (Darac) reported to Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap that 7.12 MMT of palay have already been harvested from 1.77 million hectares of palay fields nationwide, or 91 percent of the total acreage planted to the grain this dry cropping season.

With this harvest, the DA said it is confident of achieving its target of producing 17.32 MMT of palay this year. This figure represents a “rice self-sufficiency” level of 92.38 percent.

From the figures from Darac, Yap said that as of last weekend, Central Luzon and Cagayan Valley, which harvested 87 percent and 98 percent of their palay areas, respectively, produced the highest volume of palay. The two regions produced 1.31 MMT and 1.11 MMT of palay, respectively.

A total of 1.94 million hectares of land had been planted to palay this dry season, which started in November 2007 and will end this June.

To hit or surpass its production target in the wet cropping season, Yap directed the DA’s regional executive directors  this week to start working out with governors and mayors intervention programs, such as fertilizer subsidies, that local government units (LGUs) can help bankroll.

The LGUs are set to monetize their Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) following President Arroyo’s recent issuance of an executive order monetizing such IRA funds.

Yap said LGUs could use their IRA share to provide counterpart funds for a new DA program to provide fertilizer subsidies to palay farmers equivalent to P250 per 50-kilogram bag.

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) projects that palay harvest for January to June may exceed 7.1 million metric tons (MMT).

THE government continues to fill its rice warehouses in Central Luzon with imported stocks while keeping aside the 25,535 bags of unmilled grains earlier procured to offset the impact of the lean season, which came much earlier than usual.

THE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) regional office in Davao is pinning its hopes on Administrative Order (AO) 225 to enable the region to achieve rice self-sufficiency in the near term.

Government grants for research and development (R&D) activities continue to increase as universities and R&D institutions become more active in pursuing new discoveries in numerous fields, particularly biotechnology, agriculture and pharmaceuticals.

THE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), the country’s biggest power distributor, said Wednesday that its customers will experience a P0.4234 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) reduction in the generation-charge component of their June electricity bills.

IN the face of unrelenting increases in the price of oil, former President Fidel Ramos on Tuesday suggested that the government should look closely into other indigenous sources of power, instead of the administration pinning its hope on a revived Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (Bnpp).

WHAT is required to succeed in business and in management is a formula that’s been shifting over the past decade or two in some very important ways. Career paths and approaches to work that were winners throughout much of this century are no longer paying off well. Nevertheless, a significant number of people are still trying to use the old strategies, with frequent encouragement from most major institutions: big business, big labor, government and education.

WITH the advent of electronic commerce (e-commerce) in the country, online shopping has slowly made its way to the Filipino buying culture. Today, more and more Internet-savvy consumers are stepping into “virtual retail outlets” to find a vast collection of products, ranging from the simple to novelty, or from cheap to classy.