Handed down through generations, heirloom rices are special breeds of rice. They exhibit exceptional nutritional value, flavor, aroma, color, and cooking quality. While the demand for these varieties is high both in local and international markets, its production is low. Clara Saga-oc Aboli, a rice farmer from Kalinga, Apayao, admitted that heirloom rice despite its promising qualities was not a high yielder. She could only harvest 6 chayan or 360 […]

With the changing climate and environment, rice researchers have explored a more efficient method called precision breeding to improve the traits of existing rice varieties. In a recent seminar conducted at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), Dr. Rosalyn B. Angeles-Shim, assistant professor from Nagoya University in Japan, said that scientists practice precision breeding through marker-assisted selection to increase yield of rice and enhance its tolerance to biotic and abiotic […]

The National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) has recently approved 25 new varieties developed by the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), Philippine-Sino Center for Center for Agricultural Technology (PhilSCAT), Syngenta, and LongPing Philippines. Dr. Oliver Manangkil, NSIC coordinator and head of the Plant Breeding and Biotechnology Division of PhilRice, said in this batch of newly NSIC-approved varieties, the IRRI-bred […]

In the upland areas of Masinloc, Zambales, a farm is measured by a balitang – a box of rice paddy with a size of more or less 6,000 square meters. Mario Ermita, 59, owns five balitang on his farm and spends P15, 000 on labor for transplanting. Ermita has cut down his expenses when he was introduced to a technology for transplanting through the project titled Accelerating the development and […]