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Ilonggos urged to buy local rice to help local farmers

By Perla Lena

November 5, 2019, 4:33 pm

<p><strong>PATRONIZE LOCAL.</strong> Participants perform the rice dance during the kickoff of the National Rice Awareness Month on Monday (Nov. 4, 2019) held at SM City Northpoint. The Department of Agriculture-Western Visayas called on consumers to patronize local rice over the imported ones to support local farmers. <em>(PNA photo by Perla G. Lena)</em></p>

PATRONIZE LOCAL. Participants perform the rice dance during the kickoff of the National Rice Awareness Month on Monday (Nov. 4, 2019) held at SM City Northpoint. The Department of Agriculture-Western Visayas called on consumers to patronize local rice over the imported ones to support local farmers. (PNA photo by Perla G. Lena)

ILOILO CITY -- As the nation observes the National Rice Awareness Month (NRAM) this November, consumers are encouraged to patronize those that are locally produced to help local farmers.

“This is very significant because we give recognition to our farmers who plant palay. One of our advocacies is to continually inspire our farmers, that amid issues they experience this third and fourth quarter of 2019, still they will continue to plant palay,” said James Earl Ogatis, regional information officer of the Department of Agriculture (DA) Field Unit 6 (Western Visayas) in an interview on Monday.

The theme of the celebration, which is “Buy Local, Eat Local” is timely because small farmers are affected by issues such as the drop in prices of palay, high cost of farm inputs and attack of pests, among others.

Consumers are assured that local rice is safer to eat than imported rice where they don’t know their cultural practices as well as the preservatives that they use just to bring the products to the country, he added.

Western Visayas has more or less 800,000 rice farmers. “Most of our local farmers can benefit because this will have a trickle effect once our consumers will patronize their products,” he said.

The month-long celebration kicked off Monday with a short program and opening of the three-day exhibit at the SM City Iloilo.

Meantime, 13 schools offering agriculture program compete for the first-ever “Agri-Talino” contest and rice art contest on Tuesday. The output of the art contest will be used for DA’s 2020 calendar.

Ogatis said they will be working closely with schools as they hope to enhance not just the research-based technology of DA but also to hone more future agriculturists.

“The average age of our farmers is 60 years old. We need the millennials to get involve in agriculture,” he added.

An "Agri-lympics", a team-building activity which will be participated in by local farmer technicians from Western Visayas is set on November 6.

The celebration will be highlighted by the annual three-kilometer fun run set on Nov. 23 starting from SM City Southpoint towards the Diversion Road overpass.

Meantime, Ogatis called on farmers to have themselves registered during the updating of the Registry System on Basic Sector in Agriculture (RSBSA) these last two months of 2019.

He said if their name is not included in the RSBSA, then they could not receive any intervention from the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Program, a fund that was collected from out of the tariff paid by the private sector during rice importation. (PNA)




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