From R-L: PhilRice Executive Director Dr. Sailila A. Abdula, DA-RFO 3 Assistant Regional Director Crispulo G. Bautista Jr., and PhilRice Deputy Executive Director for Administration Roger F. Barroga promote the combine harvester to help farmers become more competitive.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) in Region 3 donated one unit each of rice transplanter and combine harvester to PhilRice, September 5 to help promote competitiveness among farmers through mechanization.
PhilRice will work together with DA in implementing the rice mechanization program to enable small farmers improve their productivity through appropriate and efficient mechanization technologies.
The memorandum of agreement between PhilRice and DA-Region 3 was signed during the 30th National Rice R4D Conference.
PhilRice recommends farm mechanization as one of the strategies in helping our farmers become more competitive and be at par with their counterparts in Southeast Asia.
According to PhilRice studies, labor is one of the major inputs in rice production as it accounts for the major proportion of costs in the Philippines.
The benchmarking study led by Dr. Flordeliza Bordey, PhilRice’s Acting Deputy Executive Director for Development and senior economist recommends mechanization to help reduce labor cost in rice production and contribute to farmers’ competitiveness.
