Tabuk City hybrid rice production down

Tabuk City, Kalinga - Tabuk may have lost its reputation as the informal hybrid rice capital of the country after its hybrid seed and hybrid commercial rice production plunged in the last three years.

After it exceeded 700 hectares for F1 or hybrid seed production in 2003 and 2004 and 7,000 hectares for commercial hybrid rice or F2 production during the same period, it is now down to 40 hectares for F1 production and 1,579 for commercial rice production this wet season.

City Agricultural Services Officer Gilbert Cawis said that development is attributed to a lot of factors including the deterioration of the quality of both the F1 seeds and the A x B seeds (parent lines of F1).

According to Cawis, many commercial rice farmers were turned off after their supposed the F1 seeds yielded multi-variety rice while the seed producers were also discouraged after their A x B have been found to be impure.

Cawis hinted that the Philrice, one of the government agencies promoting the hybrid rice technology, is partly responsible because, it is the source of the A x B seeds and some of the A x R being planted in the area.

Cawis also blamed Tabuk farmers because some of them do not rogue or remove the off type rice plants and likewise the seed inspectors of the Kalinga LGU for not being strict in the implementation of the procedures of F1 production.

It's not only local farmers who are victimized by the low quality seeds but farmers in other regions where the F1 production of Tabuk are being sold. Cawis said he has learned from the Agriculture Training Institute that Bicol farmers are complaining of the impure seeds sold to them by Tabuk farmers.

According to Cawis, rouging is necessary because once the seeds are harvested, there no longer is a way to determine if they are F1 or not because they look the same although their genetic characteristics are different.

Another factor in the case of F1 production is the difficulty in collecting payments from the Department of Agriculture - Cordillera, Cawis said adding that there are times when the it takes two cropping seasons before the payment of the seeds are collected.

"If the farmer has only two hectares and he has planted the whole area to A x R, where will he get his operational expenses for the next cropping season if his seeds are not paid on time?" Cawis asked.

Cawis also said that farm workers compound the problem by charging higher rates for pulling and planting seedlings on the grounds that hybrid rice farmers earn a lot from their crops.

He said that for inbred rice, farm workers charge P3,600.00 for the pulling and transplanting but demand P4,000.00 for hybrid rice.

Cawis also said that the change in the eating quality of the Mestizo 1, one of two government hybrid rice varieties, has worked against the promotion of hybrid rice among farmers.

Cawis alleged that the higher price of hybrid seeds as against inbred rice seeds is also turning away farmers.

This cropping season and with the government subsidy for each bag of F1 at P1,000.00, the farmer's equity is P1,400.00. It is higher if the seed is produced by the private companies.

The question in the mind of Cawis and other agriculture officials in the province is how to recover the billing of Tabuk as the leading hybrid rice producing locality in the country.

Cawis said that the recent entry of private firms engaged in the production of hybrid seeds in Tabuk is an initial step along this direction because these firms are very strict in the enforcement of the standards of seed production.

Just this cropping season, the SL8 Agritech, the leading private seed producer in the country, has expanded its operation to Tabuk planting 14.5 hectares to it's A x R and Cawis said that this might increase depending on the result of the trial. **by Estanislao Albano , Jr.