DA hikes palay harvest target

To revitalize the farm and fisheries sector to ensure the country’s food security, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is currently working on increasing palay output targets of around 10 million metric tons (MT) this wet season.

While palay harvests during the dry crop season reached its target of 7.1 million MT due to the heightened measures to enhance yields DA will further enhance their efforts this wet season after the provincial trips made by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo revealed a decline in fertilizer usage.

The lower usage of petrochemical-based fertilizers arising from the all-time soar in its cost made Arroyo order DA to intensify its production support programs for palay farmers to meet 2008 harvest targets this main planting season, DA Press Office revealed.

After prices have doubled to a range of P1, 500 to P1, 900 per bag from their previous year’s rates as a result of the sharp rise in petroleum prices, farmers have reportedly reduced their fertilizer use.

But DA reported that although suppliers have accounted a drop in fertilizer sales this main planting season by 30 percent, this do not correspond to an equivalent decline in production as measures to compensate for this reduction in the use of petroleum-based inputs are being implemented.

DA is also helping out farmers expand areas planted to palay in rain-fed lands, which is expected to partly compensate the drop in production caused by reduced fertilizer use.

Among SONA-driven measures to help palay farmers cope with ever-spiralling production costs is a fertilizer subsidy program that DA is implementing jointly with local government units (LGUs) starting this wet crop.

The government has approved the DA’s release of P1.29 billion as its share for the distribution among qualified farmer-beneficiaries of discount coupons worth P250 apiece and equivalent to 5.1 million bags of fertilizers.

Fertilizer support is a key component of Arroyo’s fertilizer, irrigation and other rural infrastructure, research and extension work, loans, dryers and other post-harvest facilities, and seeds (FIELDS) program.

Under the program, fertilizer coupons at a ratio of two coupons per hectare for every beneficiary are being distributed by DA.

Over the 2001 to 2007 period, higher farm spending commitments has raised palay production growth to an annual average of 4.07 percent, leading to an all-time harvest peak of 16.24 million metric tons (MT) last year.   —Rhia de Pablo