INTERCROPPING. La Carlota City Mayor Rex Jalando-on (left) and Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer I Enrique Paderes (2nd from left) witness the launching of the sugarcane-rice cropping system of Hacienda Esperanza Communal Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association in Barangay Nagasi, La Carlota City on Wednesday (Feb. 3, 2021). Provincial Agriculturist Japhet Masculino said on Friday (Feb. 5, 2021) that the project will not only benefit the farmer-beneficiaries but also the community because it contributes to ensuring food security in the province. (Photo courtesy of DAR Negros Occidental II- South)
BACOLOD CITY – Another group of farmer-beneficiaries in Negros Occidental has ventured into the sugarcane-rice cropping system (SRCS) project as an initiative to boost rice production in the province.
The latest covered area is the land tilled by the 30 members of Hacienda Esperanza Communal Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association Barangay Nagasi, La Carlota City.
Provincial Agriculturist Japhet Masculino said on Friday that the SRCS will not only benefit the farmer-beneficiaries but also the community because it contributes to ensuring food security in the province.
“This sugarcane-rice cropping project, this technology would provide additional rice production for Negros Occidental,” he added.
The project is being implemented by the Department of Agrarian Reform in Negros Occidental-South in collaboration with the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, Sugar Regulatory Administration, and La Carlota City Government.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer I Enrique Paderes said he is glad the project has materialized, adding that they will also replicate it in other agrarian reform communities in the southern Negros.
Last September, the provincial government reaped the first harvest in the pilot site located in Barangay Aranda, Hinigaran town.
Rice crops, planted alongside sugarcane in the block farm of Hacienda Bagacay Workers Carper Beneficiaries Association, were harvested three months after these were planted in June.
OPA records showed Negros Occidental, dubbed the country's sugar capital, has a 325,000 metric tons average annual rice production, with an average monthly rice consumption requirement of 600,000 bags.
Its sufficiency level ranges from a high of 95 percent to a low of 85 percent depending on climatic conditions.
Masculino said since the province is experiencing rice shortage especially during lean months, from June to August, they thought of utilizing sugarcane areas for intercropping with rice.
A previous study of the Philippine Sugar Research Institute in Victorias City showed that the intercropping system has produced 23 cavans of palay (unhusked rice) or 12 sacks of rice per hectare of sugarcane. (PNA)
