Maguindanao emerges as top Green Super Rice producer

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – The province will emerge as top producer of the new high-yield Green Super Rice (GSR) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao by 2017,  if the fragile peace in the area would  continue in the coming months, a DAF-ARMM official said.

Officials of the ARMM’s Department of Agriculture and Fisheries said, during the  recent Regional Farmers’ Field Day in Sultan Mastura, Maguindanao, that Muslim and Christian farmer have reported a two to three-fold increase in their harvests in the past three cropping seasons using GSR seeds.

“The GSR is a very promising rice variety,” said Makmod Mending, regional secretary of DAF-ARMM.

The gathering of hundreds of farmers from Maguindanao’s 36 towns was jointly organized by  Mending and the region’s chief executive, Gov. Mujiv Hataman.

The DAF-ARMM is pushing for the massive propagation of the six now popular GSR varieties in the autonomous region.

Rice farmer Danny Tabudlo said the six GSR varieties are drought-tolerant and could  withstand heavy rains.

Mending said the GSRs are “climate-change tolerant” rice varieties.

Farmers in Maguindanao that tried propagating the GSR harvested no less than seven metric tons of rice per hectare, higher than the 3.1 to 3.3 metric tons they harvest when they use in-bred varieties.

Karim Makud, an ethnic Maguindanaon farmer, said all they need now is peace in their surroundings for them to master the propagation of GSR varieties.

“As long as we can till our farms peacefully, we will continue to have bumper harvests,” farmer Rey Mosne, a father of three, said in Hiligaynon.

During the same event, a P1.6 million Japanese-made mechanized rice harvester was given  to a group of rice farmers in Barangay Tapayan in Sultan Mastura.

Mending said the combine harvester was the third to be awarded to Maguindanao province in just 12 months.

Three units of the same combine rice harvesters were earlier released by Mending’s office to farmer organizations in Lanao del Sur.

The DAF-ARMM has dispersed more than P300 million worth of farm machinery, rice and corn seeds, fertilizers and farming tools to different farmers’ groups in the region in the past two years.

Officials of different farmers’ groups that attended DAF-ARMM’s activity in Sultan Mastura urged journalists to help them drumbeat their desire for the peace overture between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to continue so they could forge ahead with their GSR propagation projects unimpeded.

The farmers are worried of a possible backlash to the government-MILF peace initiative as a consequence of the deadly Jan. 25 police-rebel encounter in Mamasapano town in the second district of Maguindanao.

“Any outbreak of hostilities due to a possible impasse in the peace process will make our lives so miserable. Our families can go hungry and even become homeless,” farmer Oscar Sanchez said.