‘Masagana Ani 300’ gets support of agriculture department

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Tuesday said that it “fully supports” the “Masagana Ani 300” challenge, which aims to improve farmers’ morale and challenge them to adopt hybrid rice to compete against the influx of imported rice.

“Actually hindi lang po kami magre-react, susuportahan pa po namin kasi may mga basis na po,”  DA Undersecretary Ariel Cayanan said in a press briefing.

(Actually we’re not only reacting to it, we’re supporting it because it has basis.)

The basis, Cayanan said, was that a rice derby has occurred where farmers are competing on who can yield the best production of such rice.

“Ang purpose ay hindi pag-awayin sila kung alin ang pinakamagandang magyi-yield kasi tatandaan po natin the seeds and the site are location specific. What is good somewhere there doesn’t necessarily mean good for the other coordinates. Kaya nag-derby po tayo sa buong bansa.”

(The purpose is not to make them fight over what would yield the most, because if we remember the seeds and site are location-specific. What is good somewhere there doesn’t mean necessarily good for the other coordinates. That’s why we had a derby in the whole country.)

“Ano, ang nakita po natin ay attainable at doable po siya (What we saw is that it was attainable and doable),” he added.

The Masagana Ani was first launched by hybrid seeds propent SL Agritech Corporation (SLAC) and the Nueva Ecija provincial agriculture office last April.

READ: Masaganang Ani 300 Award launched to combat threat of imported rice

The challenge is open to all farmers, who will be encouraged to use hybrid seeds, and the correct application of fertilizers and pesticides, to produce at least 300 bags of unhusked rice per hectare.