Science City of Muñoz, The Philippines
May 2, 2002

by Reah Joyce P. Laguna

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the wide spread promotion of hybrid rice to attain rice self-sufficiency and food security, increase job opportunities, and reduce poverty in the rural areas.

She tasked the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) as lead the lead implementing agency of the Hybrid Rice Commercialization Program (HRCP) as per Executive Order 76 dated March 2002.

HRCP is the flagship program of the Unlad Ani program under the Office of Million Jobs with Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo, Jr. as presidential adviser. He is also the Chair of the PhilRice Board of Trustees.

PhilRice, headed by Dr. Leocadio S. Sebastian, and the provincial action teams are working together to complete the masterlist of farmers that are willing to participate.

The provincial action team is composed of the provincial governor, provincial agriculturist, provincial irrigation engineer (if any), district irrigation engineer (thru NIA), provincial seed coordinator (if any), hybrid rice coordinator (thru DA-Regional Field Unit), Chairman of Federated Irrigators Associations, provincial agrarian reform officer (thru DAR), provincial manager (NFA), selected municipal agriculturists, and the Agricultural Training Institute.  Farmers that could qualify in the masterlist for wet season this year must have attended a hybrid rice technical briefing, members of an organized group (e.g., irrigators' association, agrarian reform community, farmers' organization or must be in a cluster of five), have good source of irrigation, and must have a sowing time of not earlier than May 15.

Since the start of the program in mid-March, PhilRice together with some members of the provincial action team has been conducting series of technical briefings and information campaigns about HRCP nationwide. PhilRice has also developed and distributed briefing kits on HRCP to facilitate more efficient ways of campaigning for the program. An increasing number of farmers, LGUs, agricultural technicians, agrochemical representatives, and technical staff from DA regional offices and DAR-agrarian reform communities have been briefed regarding HRCP nationwide. The program targets 50,000 hectares of rice lands across the country for planting hybrid rice Mestizo starting in May. Hybrid rice Mestizo is a Philippine variety. It is soft when cooked, aromatic, and is comparable to or better in eating quality than IR64.

With hybrid rice, a farmer can possibly get a net income of more than Php6,000/ha over the inbred rice. In technology demonstrations, it has been shown that the average yield of Mestizo hybrid rice is 6.3 t/ha.

Under HRCP, 300,000 hectares are expected to be planted with hybrid rice by the dry season (November) of 2004.

At the moment, about 47,000 hectares have been identified as farm areas committed to planting HRCP and more are expected before the start of the wet season.

The program also sees the creation of 75,000 jobs this year and 121,000 by 2004 with the adoption of hybrid rice technology. This is more so with the intensified promotion of hybrid rice seed production in the last quarter of this year.