Source: Business World
13/06/2010 – The Ginintuan Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program is seeking at least P500 million to fund assistance to hybrid rice farmers next year, 43% more than the current allocation of P350 million.
“We are looking at at least P500 million [in] assistance to farmers planting hybrid rice for 2011. Allocation this year is only around P350 million,” Frisco M. Malabanan, director of the Department of Agriculture’s GMA Rice Program, said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Mr. Malabanan said that the current allocation is part of the program’s P3.1-billion budget for the year. He did not say how much will be the allocation his office will ask for the whole program for 2011, saying only that the budget proposal is expected to be finalized by the end of month.
The total of P500 million is computed on a P1,000-per-hectare allocation for a targeted 500,000 hectares to be planted with hybrid rice next year.
The government targets an additional 64,170 hectares planted with hybrid rice in the second half to help offset production losses from the El Niño-triggered dry spell that lasted till May, the department had said that month. Palay production dropped 11.4% to 3.49 million metric tons in the first quarter, year on year — a drop the department blamed on the dry spell.
The additional targeted area is on top of the 96,888 hectares that the GMA Rice Program had initially targeted to plant with hybrid rice for the 2010 wet cropping season that runs from June to October. The additional area covers irrigated land in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Central Luzon, Western Visayas and palay-growing provinces in Mindanao.
Achieving the targeted 161,058 hectares for the wet cropping season will bring the total area planted with hybrid rice this year to 287,703 hectares, 15.08% more than the initial full-year target of 250,000 hectares.
The new targeted area is estimated to yield 966,000 MT, against the 450,000 MT year-on-year drop in the first quarter.
The Philippines has been planting hybrid rice seed at an average of 250,000-300,000 hectares a year, and the department aims to increase this to at least 600,000-800,000 hectares by 2013. Bureau of Agricultural Statistics data showed that area harvested with hybrid rice in 2009 reached 191,368 hectares, which yielded 1.01 million MT. The largest area with hybrid rice harvested was recorded in 2005 at 367,000 hectares, data from the International Rice Research Institute show.