DA targets 600 hectares of irrigated land in Western Visayas for its hybrid techno demo farm

ILOILO CITY, Nov. 12 – The Department of Agriculture Regional Field Unit 6 (DA-RFU 6) is looking forward to covering some 600 hectares of irrigated lands in Western Visayas for its hybrid rice techno demonstration.

Ginintuang Masagang Ani (GMA) Rice Action Officer for Western Visayas Victorico Nabor said that these areas will cover 300 hectares in Iloilo; 120 hectares in Aklan and sixty hectares each in Capiz, Antique and Negros Occidental.

“These are our target areas for the second cropping of 2009-2010 which will be harvested sometime in January or February,” he said.

To date, they have already established demo farms in Iloilo, Capiz and Aklan.

Particularly, these include 170 hectares in Barangay Bongca, Barotac Nuevo and 60 hectares each in Lipayon, Leganes and Tigum, Pavia all in Iloilo.

In Capiz, a 60-hectare demo farm has been established in Dumalag town and another 60 hectares each in Tangalan and Malinao towns in Aklan.

The promotion of the hybrid rice is one strategy that the DA has adopted to improve the yield of rice farmers and consequently ensure rice sufficiency.

The demo farms make use of the Pioneer Hybrid Rice 71 (PHB 71) which is being imported from India and the Mestizo 1 and 3, which are public hybrid varieties developed by the Philippine Rice Research Institute and the International Rice Research Institute.

He disclosed that the government is providing a P1,000 subsidy for every bag of hybrid rice, which costs between P3,500 to P4,200.

Nabor said that even as they go full swing with their promotion of hybrid rice there are already farmers that are already using hybrid varieties.

In Aklan, he cited that the provincial government is giving a 100-percent subsidy to 450 hectares of rice lands that will be planted with hybrid rice.

He added that the DA-RFU 6 target is for farmers within the 150,000 hectares of irrigated rice areas in Western Visayas to also use hybrid rice varieties. (PNA)

LAP/ajp/PGLena/vlo

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