Organic rice now thrives in Bulacan

MANILA, Philippines - Two varieties of traditional rice, one colored red, were demonstrated to thrive in the coastal town of Bulakan in Bulacan province during the dry season.

This was one of the highlights of the first Bulakan rice harvest festival and field day recently when matured grains from a seven-hectare demonstration farm of organic red rice variety were harvested.

Harvests of the organic red rice were estimated by municipal agriculturist Elizabeth Salvador to bring in an average of 70 cavans per hectare.

“I am already happy with 70 cavans harvest,” said Salvador, considering that it was close to the average harvest of Bulacan Farmers ranging from 80 to 90 cavans per hectare.

The seven-hectare demonstration farm, previously yielded nothing during the dry season. The rice fields were rain-fed until a motor pump was recently installed to pump up river water to the demo farm.

The other advantage of producing organic rice is its minimal cost of production. The main fertilizer used in the demo farm was chicken dung, 20 bags of it per hectare costing only P25 per bag. This was supplemented by samples of the Masinag Organic based fertilizer donated by the National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor) through it’s president, Honesto Baniqued.

Organic rice farmers in the town who now farm 48 hectares of rice lands to the revived traditional technology, sell organic rice in two and five kilo packages priced at P50 per kilo. The selling price of each 50-kilo bag of rice was P2,500 at a premium of P1,000 per bag compared to the commercial rice.

Slightly lower yield for the environment friendly organic produced red rice was offset by the higher price it commanded in the market, Salvador pointed out.