PhilRice seeks P75 M budget

Manila, Philippines -  The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is seeking P75 million worth of funds from the national government for a research and training academy focused on advanced farming techniques to improve production and encourage young people to get into agriculture.

“We are proposing a P75 million budget for next year for this initiative,” Manuel Jose Regalado, deputy executive director for research at the PhilRice said at the Management Association of the Philippines AgriBusiness and Countryside Development Foundation, Inc.’s forum.

He said the PhilRice Academy plans to put up a facility that would develop 21st century techniques for more precise farming.

Through the academy, he said PhilRice wants to be able to develop mobile applications and other information and communications technology (ICT) applications not only for increased agricultural production, but also to encourage young people to get into farming.

The average age of farmers at present is 57 years old.

He said that through developing ICT applications, they hope to be able to encourage younger people to be involved in the agriculture business.

“Young people don’t want to get involve in farming because they see it as laborious, but if they can see that there are advanced technologies that can be used then maybe they can have a liking for agriculture,” he said.

He said the academy would also offer research fellowship programs and a rice specialist training course.

He added that in the future, they would like to be able to collaborate with students in coming up with ICT applications to help farmers have greater chances of increasing their harvest.

For instance, he said, PhilRice intends to work with engineering students from the Bataan Peninsula State University who have come up with a mobile application which farmers could use to determine if the quantity of nitrogen applied in the rice field is sufficient.

The mobile application called Palay Quality Checker through Leaf Coloration Image Analysis which uses the Leaf Color Chart developed by the PhilRice was presented by the students in the same event.

The application is used by taking pictures of 10 samples of leaves from the rice field every week during the transplanting stage or the stage after the seedling stage, until the booting stage.

Crizele de Jesus, team leader said the mobile application would measure the nutrients status and the quality of palay as well as determine if there is a need to apply more fertilizer based on the samples.

The team’s project won grand prize in the new mobile application development category at the 8th SWEEP Innovation and Excellence Awards of Smart Communications, Inc. held earlier this year.

“We decided to work on this project because we want to be able help the farmers in Bataan,” de Jesus said.

She added that the team would be open to working with the PhilRice on ICT projects.