The Department of Agriculture's (DA) own Bureau of Agricultural Statistics revealed that yields of hybrid rice from 2008-2009 averaged only 5.58 metric tons (MT) per hectare. A far cry from what chief of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) rice program, Frisco Malabanan, claims that “hybrid rice achieves greater yields and thus farmers earn more without increasing their cultivation area.” Malabanan said that farmers could harvest as much as 12 MT from hybrid rice and enjoy a profit increase of at least P30,000 (US$ 650) per hectare.
Despite the DA's own data contradicting his claim, the rice program chief is undeterred. In fact, he will be seeking an additional P500 million (US$ 10.7 M) as funding support for its ongoing hybrid-rice project so that it continues until 2011. This is on top of the P3 billion (US$ 64.4 M) earmarked for the GMA rice program for this year, to subsidise seeds of 860,000 farmer-beneficiaries and training of 373,290 farmers and extension workers.
The new Secretary of Agriculture, Proceso Alcala, seems likely to continue with the DA's hybrid rice programme. He has been vocal about how, under his leadership, the DA “intends to intensify rice production and provide farmers all the necessary support such as postharvest facilities, to ensure the country achieves its goal of rice self-sufficiency in three years.”
Farmers and public interest groups are wary of this. In a statement, the Rice Watch and Action Network (RWAN) has urged President Benigno Aquino and Agriculture Secretary Alcala to scrap subsidies for hybrid rice and investigate corruption charges involved in the seed subsidy program.
“We appeal to the new administration to evaluate the current strategies of the DA to achieve the self-sufficiency targets with Frisco Malabanan, the current director of the Rice Program [who is setting] his eyes anew on subsidizing hybrid rice technology despite its failure to sustain rice productivity,” implores the group. According to RWAN, the DA has been consistently unsuccessful with its targets in the past years, capped by the 8.7-percent production shortfall in 2009.
“Despite a whopping P10-billion (US$ 215 M) allotment for the Department’s Rice Program and P17.5 billion (US$ 376 M) for irrigation, the overall production reached 16.3 million metric tons only in 2009,” according to the group. That's 1.5 million MT short of the target 17.8 million metric tons last year.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) on the other hand sees the continuation of the hybrid rice programme as part of a larger agenda. “This is a move to offset the anticipated massive landgrabbing, displacement of farmers and land-use conversion of the country’s prime agricultural lands devoted to rice production,” according to the group.
“We know that this is a complicated issue, thus, should not be treated as plain plus or minus equals something. Rice production is not an economic issue but more of a socio-political and economic issue that actually hounded the country for more than centuries,” Danilo Ramos, KMP Secretary-General said in a press statement.
Meanwhile, SL agritech, the company behind SLH8 hybrid variety that failed to produce grain in parts of Nueva Ecija province last year, announced that it has shipped its first export of hybrid seeds to Vietnam. Ironically, Vietnam's rice farmers are already facing difficulties because of faulty hybrid seeds. The popular variety Nhi uu 838 was a total failure a couple of months back. A new viral disease called Southern Rice Black Streak Dwarf Virus (SRBSDV) transmitted by the white back planthopper (WBPH) has also infected at least 15,000 ha of the country's ricelands covering 19 provinces, mostly infecting fields of hybrid rice.
SL Agritech also exports hybrid rice seeds to other countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh. Recently, the company entered into an agreement with the Bangladesh Agricultural Department Corp. (BADC) making Bangladesh its newest hybrid rice seed production site, expanding its 250-hectare site to a minimum of 600 hectares. In Indonesia, SL Agritech has 1,700 hectares for hybrid rice seed production expanding to 3,000 hectares by next year.