Asian farmers tackle rice-duck technology

CEBU, Philippines - Farmers from different countries in Asia have started sharing various technologies and methods in farming as they convened in Cebu yesterday for the 6th International Rice-Ducks Conference.

The event highlighted the rice-duck technology, which has been discovered in Japan by Takao Furuno, a farmer who first developed the method of cultivating rice associated with duck-raising.

Organized by the Philippine Agrarian Reform Foundation for National Development (PARFUND), the conference drew hundreds of Asian farmers and scientists as well as agriculturists wanting to learn more about different farming techniques.

Delegates were from Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China and the Philippines.

The conference, which was held at the University of San Carlos Talamban Campus, also aims to discover farming technologies that will increase the yield of crops, particularly rice, and at the same time minimize the production cost.

With the exchange of information and cultural practices, PARFUND and its partner non-government organizations and government agencies hope to find solution that might help cope with the present global economic crisis.

The Department of Agriculture, which is hosting this year’s conference, supported the idea on replicating the technology in the country.

DA is now hastening the development of the Philippine Plan on Rice-Duck Farming in partnership with local government units, the academe and farmer organizations.

Since its introduction, efforts to spread the rice-duck farming to other rice producing nations have been done to bolster food security and sufficiency.

DA believes that the new farming system will be highly beneficial for farmers as it is superior to the traditional system of rice production in terms of economic benefits and environmental impact.

Studies showed that rice yield increased significantly by 50 percent while duck herding before transplanting rice is effective in eliminating golden kuhol.

Holding on to the success of the new system in other countries like Japan, DA hopes that it will also be successful in the Philippines, which had experienced a rice crisis in the past.

It added that the new system will be more efficient if the country will also boost the duck industry, which has been declining over the past years. – Jessica Ann R. Pareja/LPM (THE FREEMAN)