Farmers get 2.26M bags of certified rice seeds

About 2.26 million bags of certified inbred rice seeds have been distributed for free to rice farmers to help boost the country's rice production.

Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) Deputy Executive Director Flordeliza Bordey on Tuesday said seed delivery is already 90 percent of its target 2.5 million bags of certified inbred seeds for distribution this wet cropping season. 

"We have already reached 968 municipalities or about 97 percent of our target 1,000 municipalities in 55 provinces," Bordey said during the Laging Handa virtual presser.

She explained that farmers listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture and are practicing transplanting method received one 20-kilogram (kg) bag of seed for every half hectare of cultivated area up to a maximum of six bags for those who have rice fields larger than 2.5 hectares.

 Meanwhile, farmers practicing the direct-seeding method received two bags of seeds for every half hectare, she added.

The distribution of certified inbred seeds was done under the Seed Program of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, which is a component of the Republic Act 11203 or Rice Tariffication Law.

Under the law, P10 billion will be allocated every year for the next six years from 2019 for RCEF and will be allocated as follows: P5 billion for farm mechanization; P3 billion for high-yielding seeds; P1 billion for credit support; and P1 billion for training programs. 

PhilRice leads the RCEF-Seed Program.

Compared with farmer-saved seeds from previous harvest, Bordey pointed out that the certified inbred seeds distributed under the RCEF program could yield 10 percent or more as these seeds have high seedling vigor, pure, and uniform crop stand.

The RCEF-Seed Program, the government’s intervention to enhance farmers’ competitiveness in a free trade regime, aims to distribute more than 2.5 million bags of high-quality seeds to more than one million Filipino rice farmers, which is about twice the total number of bags distributed and beneficiaries reached by the Institute when it rolled out the program in October 2019.

 Bordey said the next distribution of seeds will be done during the next planting season in October 2020.