Monday, June 09, 2008 Yap vows higher farmer income By Larry Lopez
TABUK CITY, Kalinga -- There is no greater legacy we can leave our farmers if not higher incomes.
This was Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Arthur Yap's message, conveyed to farmers by Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program National Coordinator Director Frisco Malabanan.
"The bottom line of all our efforts in the department is to increase the income of farmers, who seemed not to enjoy any satisfaction from their labor", Malabanan said.
As government steps toward this move, Malabanan announced the new government buying price for meztiso hybrid rice seed of P3,000 from P2,400 per bag from farmer seed growers.
"This will increase to P50,000-80,000 the net gain per hectare of hybrid rice farmers", Malabanan stressed.
Because of the luring income seen in hybrid rice production, government aims to cover all the 4.5 million hectares hybrid rice production area of the country by next year and make the Philippines a major supplier of hybrid rice seeds in the region, Malabanan said.
This is in-line with the agenda of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to make the country rice sufficient by 2010, "so by then there will be no more rice importation," Malabanan said. "Instead, the Philippines will become by then a major supplier of rice, a title it used to hold in the early days."
Part of this government effort is the stable National Food Authority (NFA) unhusked rice grains (palay) procurement price of P17/kilo, Malabanan said.
He explained the rate has pushed the price of unhusked rice grains to go up among private rice traders, who pose higher competition with government.
"Eventually, we created an advantage market for our farmers, even if they directly sell their produce to local traders," Malabanan said.
