Hybrid rice – the way to go?

The National Food Authority has raised its buying price of palay to P17/kilo. It’s about time. The rice farmers are rejoicing at this new support price which gives them some breathing space. The NFA has been flooding the market with rice that sells for P25/k, and according to some Nueva Ecija farmers, how can they compete if their cost is P30 to P32/k?

Actually, bringing the support price to a more realistic level is a more viable alternative than importing.  We import at a higher price than what we are willing to give our local farmers, and then sell the rice at subsidized prices to the private sector.  How viable is that?  Yes, it’s a stop gap to the rice shortage that suddenly stared us in the face and caught everybody flat footed but the economics stink.  After serving its purpose, hopefully we don’t go into heavy rice importing as a matter of course.

If China can do it, indeed, why can’t we?  That, in essence, is what Henry Lim, CEO and chair of SL Agritech Corporation says about the issue of our self-sufficiency in rice. Yes, China used to import rice heavily in the past.  Actually, this could be understandable if you consider that their population is 1.2 billion, and their total arable land is only seven percent of their land area. But they rose above this basic problem of feeding the population by going into hybrid rice production.

In the Philippines, hybrid rice only accounts for five percent of our total rice production.  In-bred rice, which is still the more popular and traditional choice, yields much less than hybrid–three to four tons against hybrid’s eight to 10 tons. That is a huge difference, though in reality, the national average hits only 3.5 to 3.6 tons. The rice experts say that if we can only increase this average to six tons, we could be a rice-exporting country in no time, right up there with China and Vietnam.

Again, it all boils down to technology, and the people’s readiness to accept new studies, new methods.  Hybrid rice has been around since 2003/2004, but we’re still trailing our ASEAN neighbors when it comes to adapting to this new variety. It’s not as if we do not have access to this new technology. In fact, as far as hybrid rice goes, China is leading the pack, with India in No. 2 position, and the Philippines in third position.

Problem is, we cannot even be comfortable in the third position. Indonesia is poised to overtake us as it has been importing this new technology from the two top leaders, China and India. SL Agritech has also been exporting its hybrid seeds to other places like Bangladesh and Vietnam who, says Henry, are practically knocking at their company doors to sell them these hybrid seeds. SL Agritech is a local company, and sees how many of our local farmers deign to take advantage of this fact, while other countries need to pay more to export them. As I pointed out earlier, only five percent of our local production is hybrid.

Maybe part of the problem is inadequate information dissemination, as Henry points out. Even landowners are not fully aware of the advantages of hybrid and thus have not converted, and this is especially true in places like Isabela, for example, where traditional rice is still favored over hybrid. You can actually see farms, side by side, one planted to hybrid and one planted to in-bred, and the landowners are oblivious to the huge difference in yields come harvest time. Most of the time, It’s only the tenants minding the big tracts of land, and the complacent ignorance goes unchecked for a protracted time.

Actually, the economics of it is interesting enough. If you produce 10 tons of palay, sell it even at the support price of P17/k, you would get P170,000 for the 10 tons. The cost here is estimated to be around P40,000, so you clear P120,000 right off.  Very simple.  According to the rice experts, if you have five hectares of rice land planted to hybrid, you could be a millionaire come harvest time.

The operative word, of course, is hybrid, and the key phrase is effective information dissemination. The government’s rice program is in itself viable, well-researched and adaptable to our local conditions. Disseminating the information down to the grass roots may be even tougher.  And, if big landowners are not well-advised on the advantages of the full use of the new technology, how can this trickle down to the tenants and land tillers?

Another problem that needs to be addressed is fertilizer. While before it costs the farmer P350/sack, this same fertilizer now costs P2,000/sack.  The marginal farmers tend to use less fertilizer because of the prohibitive cost, and less fertilizer, of course, translates to significantly lower yields when they harvest. Vicious cycle?

The government’s Ginintuang Masaganang Ani national program is promoting the use of organic fertilizer.  Not only is it safer for the environment, it is much cheaper too, but then who knows about these organic fertilizers?  Not your regular farmers who have to scrimp on the “abono” they use every planting season.

Incidentally, the Masaganang Ani’s program on high value commercial crops should also be interesting for farmers. They have embarked on a program of massive infusion of seeds and other production inputs to widen the cultivation of high value crops. We don’t have to rely on rice production to make our mark in the food export scene. Our exports on banana last year went up 7.13 percent, mango by 11.79 percent, pineapple by 5.31 percent. Coffee, however, had a negative growth of -3.68 percent. They attribute this basically to the rate of land conversion. Coffee is traditionally a prime product of Cavite which of late has seen a lot of its agricultural lands converted for industrial or housing use.

I hear Libby Corporation is wiling to establish a plant here, specifically looking at the pineapple-growing region of Camarines Norte. Their small Formosa pineapples are very sweet.  That should be good news for the local folks of Camarines Norte.

What seems to be exciting now is the prospect of rubber. Raw rubber used to cost P8-10/kilo. Now, it goes for P48-50/kilo. Interesting? The main concentration of our rubber plantations, I hear, is in Zamboanga. Incidentally, we gather our rubber exports grew as well last year, registering an impressive growth of 18 percent.

Yet another exciting prospect is cacao. I don’t really know if we have high grade cacao, but I know we are already exporting this.  Where before cacao went for P800- 900/metric ton, it now goes for P3,000/MT. That’s why the Masaganang Ani people are looking at coconut areas to convert to cacao, or possibly just go into inter-crop schemes to take advantage of the current prices of these high value commercial crops.

High technology and adequate information dissemination — that just seems to be the formula for more productive yields, whether for rice or other crops.  Corporate farming is the way to go, really, and with the right support, we have the fertile lands and human resources to make a go of it. Hopefully, hybrid rice catches on, and we can be self-sufficient in rice by 2012. Incidentally, have you heard of the native-grown rice known as Dona Maria? It comes in several varieties, Jasmine, Japonica, etc. They claim that it is the best-tasting rice in the world now, favored by many foreigners over Thai rice.  Best of all, its Pinoy.

Memories....and more

Thanks again to Mon Guevara and Butch Belgica for the treasure trove of memories.  However, some of the other e-mails I got duplicated the other items you sent me, and I am reprinting some here.

From Miles Laguna — “Diet colas may be the in-thing now, but in our generation, we enjoyed the likes of Fres Gusto, Choco Vim and Barley’s.  They came in smaller bottles (not cans), were full of flavor, and healthy.”

From Boyet Martinez -”I remember drinking Canada Dry at Botica Boie’s, if I didn’t have a date.  Otherwise, it was a sundae or a chocolate malt at this favorite dating place.”

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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