By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
TABUK CITY, Kalinga – A representative of the leading private producer of hybrid rice seeds in the country and an agricultural worker of the Tabuk City LGU are optimistic that local farmers will continue planting hybrid rice varieties despite the decision of the Aquino Administration to stop subsidizing the hybrid seed requirements.
Wilmer Villanueva, sales manager of the SL Agritech for the Cagayan Valley and the Cordillera, and Agricultural Technologist Jullibert Aquino believe that while the absence of subsidy has an impact on the number of hybrid seed users all over the country, the development will not spell the doom of rice hybridization in the country.
The two expressed confidence that eventually, more farmers will realize that the price of hybrid seeds is negligible when compared with the increase in income due to the higher yield of hybrid rice.
Aquino cited the case of Pedro Budanio of Laya East who harvested 209 cavans from his one hectare farm this cropping season. With the farm gate price at P14.00 per kilo at the time, the farmer grossed P146,000.00 thereby netting around P110,000.00.
Aquino also said that during the last cropping, the 65 hectares planted to SL8 in barangay Tuga averaged 184 cavans per hectare.
The normal inbred rice yield in the city is 100 cavans per hectare.
Villanueva who revealed that their nationwide sales this cropping season which is the first without government subsidy plunged from 120,000 bags in the last cropping season to only 60,000 said that the reduction was expected seeing that the first cash out of farmers is substantial.
Up to the last cropping season, the price SL Agritech 20-kilo bag which is good for a hectare is P4,500 but this has been lowered to P3,950.00 this cropping season as part of the company’s strategy to weather the effects of the removal of the government seed subsidy.
Villanueva informed that another strategy they have adopted is the plant now, pay later (PNPL) scheme which they first tried in Tabuk and which, according to him, helped the company distribute 416 bags in the city this cropping season.
“The farmers are in the adjustment period. Our campaign is to make them see the difference in the ROI. Even if the margin is only 40 cavans, that already translates to around P30,000.00 additional income per hectare,” Villanueva said explaining that in Cagayan and Nueva Ecija, the average yield per hectare of SL Agritech varieties are 170 and 180 cavans, respectively.
The 418 hectares planted to the SL8 variety this cropping season is the only remaining area devoted to the new rice technology in the city.
This is a very far cry from the 9,872 hectares in the two cropping season of 2004 when Tabuk was proclaimed by the Department of Agriculture as the town with the widest area planted to hybrid rice.
From that year on, however, the hectarage for hybrid rice in the city steadily declined. **
TABUK CITY, Kalinga – A representative of the leading private producer of hybrid rice seeds in the country and an agricultural worker of the Tabuk City LGU are optimistic that local farmers will continue planting hybrid rice varieties despite the decision of the Aquino Administration to stop subsidizing the hybrid seed requirements.
Wilmer Villanueva, sales manager of the SL Agritech for the Cagayan Valley and the Cordillera, and Agricultural Technologist Jullibert Aquino believe that while the absence of subsidy has an impact on the number of hybrid seed users all over the country, the development will not spell the doom of rice hybridization in the country.
The two expressed confidence that eventually, more farmers will realize that the price of hybrid seeds is negligible when compared with the increase in income due to the higher yield of hybrid rice.
Aquino cited the case of Pedro Budanio of Laya East who harvested 209 cavans from his one hectare farm this cropping season. With the farm gate price at P14.00 per kilo at the time, the farmer grossed P146,000.00 thereby netting around P110,000.00.
Aquino also said that during the last cropping, the 65 hectares planted to SL8 in barangay Tuga averaged 184 cavans per hectare.
The normal inbred rice yield in the city is 100 cavans per hectare.
Villanueva who revealed that their nationwide sales this cropping season which is the first without government subsidy plunged from 120,000 bags in the last cropping season to only 60,000 said that the reduction was expected seeing that the first cash out of farmers is substantial.
Up to the last cropping season, the price SL Agritech 20-kilo bag which is good for a hectare is P4,500 but this has been lowered to P3,950.00 this cropping season as part of the company’s strategy to weather the effects of the removal of the government seed subsidy.
Villanueva informed that another strategy they have adopted is the plant now, pay later (PNPL) scheme which they first tried in Tabuk and which, according to him, helped the company distribute 416 bags in the city this cropping season.
“The farmers are in the adjustment period. Our campaign is to make them see the difference in the ROI. Even if the margin is only 40 cavans, that already translates to around P30,000.00 additional income per hectare,” Villanueva said explaining that in Cagayan and Nueva Ecija, the average yield per hectare of SL Agritech varieties are 170 and 180 cavans, respectively.
The 418 hectares planted to the SL8 variety this cropping season is the only remaining area devoted to the new rice technology in the city.
This is a very far cry from the 9,872 hectares in the two cropping season of 2004 when Tabuk was proclaimed by the Department of Agriculture as the town with the widest area planted to hybrid rice.
From that year on, however, the hectarage for hybrid rice in the city steadily declined. **
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