• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson still wants to increase the farmers’ rice production from four to six metric tons (MT) per hectare, with the province’s current 84 to 86 percent rice sufficiency.
Lacson, who led the distribution of 246 sacks of certified good rice seeds to more than 200 farmers in E.B. Magalona, Ilog, Manapla and Cadiz City, affected by the natural calamities, said “through this, we hope to really increase our rice production to six metric tons or even more.”
The Negros Occidental Seedgrowers Agriculture Cooperative and the Negros First Integrated Agricultural Center donated the rice seeds as facilitated by the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, in line with its “Binhi sang Probinsya” under the Abanse Negrense program.
Despite the occurrence of calamities every year, Lacson said the rice farmers and rice seed growers did not surrender.
He noted that the production of rice farmers in Bago City, despite the El Niño phenomenon, did not drop.
In fact, there was a minimal increase, the governor said.
Lacson also turned over P250,000 in financial assistance to the Amia Village Organic Farmers Association in Pontevedra and the Tampalon Rainfed Upland Farmers Association in Kabankalan City.
“Because of our production, the food security is still okay. Walang gutom,” Lacson said.
Asked if the target of six metric tons per hectare can be achieved, Provincial Agriculturist Dina Genzola said that “it may not be instant.”
“But the target is 2025 to 2027,” she added.
Genzola said that with all the agricultural inputs, technology, irrigation and all components in the rice production, also in partnership with Philippine Rice Research Institute, Department of Agriculture, National Irrigation Administration, among others, “probably, we could attain it”.
The challenge is the adverse effects of calamities, she added. | GB
