LAOAG CITY -- Shifting from the use of traditional farm tools to state-of-the-art mechanized farming equipment, organized farmers groups in Piddig town lead the way in terms of increasing rice production and reducing post-harvest losses.
As the pioneer adopters of consolidated farming and farm mechanization in Ilocos Norte, farmers in Estancia, Piddig town attest to how they were able to achieve about 30 percent increase in income when they shifted from manual to modern method of farming.
To date, the town has 273 percent rice sufficiency which has been attributed to the local government’s effort promoting consolidated farming to its farmer-cooperators.
Consolidated farming ensures the management of small farms combined together for purposes of improving farm productivity while individual ownership is preserved.
To sustain this, the Provincial Agriculture Office in cooperation with the Piddig LGU met with local farmers in Estancia to discuss additional ways to further increase their income.
One of the highlights of Tuesday's forum is allowing farmers to plan ahead starting from sowing to harvest. This way, they have a better chance to negotiate for a better price of their products.
Engineer Eddie Guillen, former town mayor and agricultural consultant of Piddig, said it entails a lot of hard work and perseverance to encourage farmers to deviate from the old norm.
“They have been used to it (traditional farming) and when you introduce something new to them, apparently, they won’t believe you until they see it for themselves what it is like. You have to show you are really sincere and that you are indeed willing to help them improve their lives,” Guillen said.
In early 2016, about 65-farmer members are among the pioneering farmer organizations to adopt this system, backed by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and other support national government line agencies extending support services to the grassroots.
When Melchor Balgona, president of Zanjera Salpad, first heard of consolidated farming, he said he could hardly imagine his small farm being consolidated with his neighboring farm lots.
“At first, we don’t like the concept. But when (former mayor Guillen) explained well to us how we could benefit from it, I tried to convince my members in a diplomatic way to give it a try. After all, we have nothing to lose,” Balgona said.
Amidst threats of typhoon Karen and Lawin, the Salpad farmers were quick to harvest their palay early using combined threshing machines that only takes about five hours to harvest a hectare of rice plantation.
Deviating from the traditional farming system that entails extensive hard labor, farmers here initially consolidated at least 18 hectares of their farmlands through a ‘plant now, pay later plan’ and planted PHB 79, a high yielding hybrid rice variety during the wet cropping season.
Through the Piddig Basi Multi-Purpose Cooperative that offers financial assistance to farmer-members with a minimal interest rate of one percent per month, local farmers here were able to hit their average production target of six tons per hectare compared to four tons/hectare in traditional farming.
The same service provider also operates a modern Rice Processing Complex and other farm machineries through a project grant courtesy of the DA.
In previous years, small-time farmers here would go to usurers when they are short of farming capital input. In a fully-mechanized farming scheme, farmers could harvest as much as 12 tons per hectare with much lower capital input based on estimate of the DA farmer technicians.
To ensure that farmers will still have a stable source of livelihood once they venture in a fully mechanized farming system, the Piddig local government unit is giving at least two hectares per farming family to plant coffee and other high value crops —both in the lowland and highlands.
Farmers will also get hands-on training on vermicomposting for them to produce their organic fertilizer or sell it to the cooperative for use in the development of a 1,000 hectare coffee plantation. (PNA)
