DA to change seed procurement process

MANILA, Philippines  — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is planning to change the process of procuring hybrid-rice seed varieties to allow local farmers to have freer options in choosing what to plant that would produce the best yield.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said the DA is crafting a position paper that aims to reorganize the procurement process of seeds and will be presented President Rodrigo Duterte.

"The procurement of palay seeds should not be covered by the ordinary procurement process and laws because hybrid seeds are area-specific," Piñol said.

The existing government policy on procurement is accepted to be "lowest bidder wins" and is based on the Government Procurement Reform Act of 2003.

"It might be the cheapest, but what if it will not produce better yield? It will just defeat our purpose. I will talk to the President about this and other agencies that govern the procurement process, that seeds should be exempted from the usual procurement process were the lowest bidder wins," the Agriculture chief said.

He added that local farmers prefer to be more liberal in choosing what type they will plant because they have seen its effects in various specific areas.

"With the ordinary process, we will be tied to who the lowest bidder will be, but we are after the result and the farmers know better," Piñol said.

"Unlike other commodities being bought by the government, rice seeds are dependent on specific soil type and climatic conditions and should not be approached in a very generic way," he added.

Meanwhile, the DA has already targeted to expand hybrid rice area to 600,000 to 700,000 hectares next year and as much as one million by 2020 from the current 400,000 hectares.

"With hybrid rice, the country’s targeted rice self-sufficiency is possible by 2020. With a milling recovery of 65 percent, the added production could yield 2.6-million metric tons (MT) of rice which is more than enough to cover the national shortage of 1.8-million MT every year," Piñol said.

With hybrid rice, farmers can harvest higher yield of nine to ten metric tons (MT) per hectare from the current four MT per hectare.