A MAXIMUM of 1 million metric tons (MMT) of additional unmilled rice, on top of the 18.46 MMT that will be produced this year.
This is what the Department of Agriculture hopes to achieve, Secretary Proceso J. Alcala told reporters in a press briefing yesterday.
The government hopes to achieve this through a program that seeks to encourage farmers to change their cropping practice, he said.
“The additional 1 million tons of palay will serve as our buffer. If we will be able to achieve this additional output, we may no longer import rice next year,” he said.
Assistant Agriculture Secretary Dante S. Delima, who joined the briefing, said the Philippines may be able to drastically reduce rice imports to 100,000 metric tons (MT) next year if the government is successful in implementing a program that calls for a change in the cropping calendar for palay in irrigated areas.
Under the government’s plan, he said, farmers will be told to plant a month earlier or by April for the wet cropping season in 2012. Harvest will then start in August.
The plan also calls for a third cropping which may start in the middle of September or in October.
“The idea is to avoid the period when strong typhoons usually visit the Philippines,” said Delima, who heads the national rice program of the government.
He said the government has already started consultations and most farmers in Luzon have given their commitment to follow the amended cropping calendar of the DA.
“Our estimate is that farmers tilling as many as 250,000 hectares of farmlands will commit to this program and add [a maximum of] 1 million tons of unmilled rice to our production [this year],” said Delima.
The DA noted that strong typhoons and other natural calamities such as floods damaged 2.12 MMT of palay last year. Delima noted that Typhoons Pedring and Quiel, which ravaged the country in the latter part of September and early October, damaged more than 900,000 MT of paddy rice.
“Imagine if we didn’t sustain damage from the typhoons and other natural disasters. Baka hindi na tayo nag-import ng bigas ngayong taon,” said Alcala.
Traditionally, the DA noted, the Philippines gets 60 percent of its annual palay harvest from the main wet-season cropping, while 40 percent comes from the dry-season cropping.
Meanwhile, the DA will honor tomorrow the country’s top rice-producing provinces, cities, towns, irrigators’ associations (IAs), and outstanding agricultural extension workers (AEWs) in the first-ever 2011 Agri-Pinoy Rice Achievers’ Awards or Parangal sa mga Bosing ng Palayan.
Alcala said the winners are from 10 provinces, 50 cities and towns, eight IAs and 157 AEWs. They will receive more than P100 million worth of prizes in the form of agricultural projects and cash incentives. He said President Aquino will be the event’s guest of honor and speaker.
The top 10 provinces will each receive P4 million worth of agricultural projects, while the top 50 cities and towns and eight IAs will each receive P1 million worth of agricultural projects. The 157 AEWs will also receive P20,000 each as cash incentive.
