10% E Visayas rice production growth--DA
By Vicente Labro
Visayas Bureau
First Posted 23:15:00 11/23/2008
Filed Under: rice problem, Agriculture
TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines--Top officials of the Department of Agriculture in Eastern Visayas have expressed confidence of a 10-percent growth in rice production in 2008.
Rufino Ayaso III, chief of the DA regional research division, also expressed optimism the region would breach the one-million-metric-ton mark in rice yield for the first time this year.
Ayaso said the Bureau of Statistics placed the region's rice production in the second semester of 2008 at 475,000 MT of palay or unhusked rice.
However, the BAS estimated Eastern Visayas' rice production to reach 546,175 MT in the first semester, he said.
If these are confirmed, the region's palay production for 2008 could reach 1.4 million MT, said Ayaso, the concurrent regional coordinator of the Ginintuan Masaganang Ani (GMA, Golden Bountiful Harvest) rice program.
The region's palay production in 2007 reached 949,000 MT.
Hitting the one-million-MT palay yield this year would mean that the region's rice harvest doubled in the past eight years.
The DA-8 data showed that the region's palay harvest in 2001 reached only 565,895 MT.
The areas planted to rice from May to October in 2008 also rose from 116,822 hectares to 120,976 hectares, up by 3.6 percent.
In an earlier interview, DA-8 regional director Leo Cañeda attributed this year's high rice production in the region to the farmers' continued use of certified and hybrid rice, area expansion and the use of fertilizer.
Cañeda disclosed that the continuing government subsidy on rice seeds and fertilizer also encouraged more areas to be planted with certified and hybrid rice.
Meanwhile, BAS data have shown that in 2007, Leyte province topped in palay production in Eastern Visayas with 582,840 MT, followed by Southern Leyte (86,902 MT), Samar (86,768 MT), Northern Samar (76,766 MT), Biliran (71,817 MT) and Eastern Samar (43,734 MT).
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