Nat’l Rice Derby in Bohol

The National Rice Board (NRB) composed of the different seeds companies will conduct a National Rice Derby in Talibon, Bohol in the next cropping season to start in May.

This is in collaboration with the Provincial Government of Bohol through the Office of Provincial Agriculturist (OPA), Department of Agriculture-Regional Field Office (DA-RFO) 7, Local Government Unit (LGU) Talibon through the Municipal Agriculture Office.

Erlindo Samblaceño, Provincial Agricultural Technology Coordinating Office (PATCO) rice focal person and Lorebien Lagapa, provincial seed coordinator said barangay San Jose, Talibon was chosen as the best site for the National Rice Derby among other identified sites namely: San Isidro, Pilar; Bayongan, San Miguel; and Bulilis, Ubay.

They said that prior to the rice derby, the Technical Working Group (TWG) created, composed of the representatives from NBC, DA-RFO7, OPA, LGU-Talibon, MAO/MA and farmer leader will conduct a briefing to present the guidelines of the rice techno demo to the concerned farmers whose tilled 24 hectares (has.) of irrigated rice lands in San Jose would be the areas of the program.

Of the 24 has., the 20 of it would be planted with 60 varieties of hybrid rice and the remaining 4 has. would be planted with inbred, they said.

They added that the production costs on this rice demo would be shouldered by the seeds companies and each company would designate a technical expert to take care of the planted hybrid varieties together with the technical expert on rice from PhilRice.

During harvest time, a three-day Farmers’ Field Day will be conducted at the rice derby site. About a thousand participants are expected to come or participate daily. Among the expexted delegates are DA officials and farmer leaders coming from the other regions in the country.

Samblaceño and Lagapa disclosed that the proposed budget in a counterpart scheme from the DA-RFO7, PGBH, LGU concerned and seed companies would reach P4 million to cover food, transportation and accommodation of participants.

They explained that the national rice derby aims to identify what top three varieties suitable to the classification of soil in San Jose, Talibon or rice ecosystem in the area that would produce high yield. (Atoy Cosap)