Use of biotech to boost yields pushed

MANILA, Philippines - The National Agricultural and Fishery Council (NAFC) is pushing the propagation of nutrition farming and has showcased the effect of using organic fertilizer developed through biotechnology in rice farms located in Barangay Bodega, Floridablanca, Pampanga and in Dinalupihan, Bataan.

Department of Agriculture (DA) officials led by Undersecretary Joel Rudinas met with farmers and urged them to “isolate and reproduce more microorganisms to be used in converting organic matter available in the environment to nutrients. And stop practices that pollute the soil and add to the acidity of the soil, because the nutrients in acidic soil are rendered useless.”

Rudinas stressed that it is time to arrest the misuse of fertilizers that, through time, reduces the natural fertility of the soil, explaining that without nourishing it, the result would be an annual one percent reduction of such fertility.

The event, called a harvest festival through rice nutrition farming, was organized through the efforts of newly-designated NAFC chief Noel Juliano and supported by director Asterio Saliot of the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI.)

Farmers present during the festival in Dinalupihan and Floridablanca are using organic fertilizers developed by 10 local companies who have committed themselves to develop techno-demo farms in a 100-hectare irrigated within a cluster of 1,000-hectares of rice farms in Pampanga and Bataan.

The showcase was organized to show the effective character of rice nutrition farming, which extensively uses organic fertilizers developed through biotechnology processes.