Department of Agriculture plans to expand hybrid rice area by 64,170 hectares

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture (DA) is targeting an additional 64,170 hectares for planting to hybrid rice this year to offset projected production losses from the El Nino dry spell.

Dr. Frisco Malabanan, director of the DA’s Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program, said the recovery plan will cover Central Luzon, Western Visayas, the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and the palay-growing provinces of Mindanao.

The additional areas that will be planted to hybrid rice are on top of the 96,888 hectares that the GMA Rice Program had set for the 2010 wet cropping season.

Malabanan said the DA expects to attain its palay production target of 17 million metric tons (MT) or more this year by expanding areas planted to hybrid rice.

“With more hybrid rice areas and greater cooperation from LGUs (local government units) and the private sector, the rice industry can look forward to achieving the palay production target for cropping year 2010,” Malabanan said.

The DA aims to increase areas planted to hybrid rice to at least 600,000 hectares and up as much as 800,000 hectares in 2013.

Malabanan said the DA, through the GMA Rice Program, currently grants subsidies for the purchase of hybrid rice seeds and conducts technical briefings for farmers on how to optimize yields using hybrid seeds with the help of its regional field units (RFUs) in collaboration with the LGUs and the private sector.

Hybrid rice yields at least 15 percent more produce than certified seeds (CS). Based on reports, hybrid rice varieties have recorded a yield advantage of 33 percent more than those of inbred CS. 

Malabanan said that farmers in the El Niño-hit provinces of Isabela and Cagayan were able to double their incomes and increase their yields by an average of 200 percent despite the dry spell by planting hybrid rice seeds during the dry season cropping.

Meanwhile, three Asian countries – Indonesia, Bangladesh and Malaysia – are utilizing the Philippines’ hybrid rice technology to meet their growing demand for the cereal.

Nigeria, considered the most populated country in Africa with 140 million people, has likewise shown its interest to adopt the technology when it signed recently an agreement with SL Agritech Corp. for the supply of SL-8H super hybrid rice seeds.

“Before finalizing everything and all that, they conducted intensive field tests on our seed variety and the result showed its potentials, outperforming their traditional rice varieties,” said Henry Lim, SL Agritech chairman and chief executive officer (CEO).

To increase production and meet its growing demand for the cereal, Lim said Cambodia and Burma have sent feelers signifying their intentions to also utilize the SL Agritech hybrid rice technology.

In the last two years, SL Agritech, the leading producer in the Philippines of hybrid rice seeds, made several shipments of its SL-8H hybrid rice seeds to Indonesia through its government firm, the PT Sang Hyang Seri.

“We are very happy of the report we received from this firm that they had made a ‘breakthrough’ in the production of our seeds,” Lim said.

The report, according to Lim was made during the inaugural harvest of the SL-8SHS hybrid seeds at the PT Sang Hyang Seri’s 242-hectare farm in Sukamandi, Indonesia. The occasion was attended by officials of the state-run agriculture agency headed by Director Eddy Budonio, Lim said.

With a population of 230 million, Indonesia, which is one of the world’s biggest rice-consuming countries, envisions to plant up to five million hectares of hybrid rice in the next five years.