(2 above images[1] from Rice Crop Manager Advisory Service)
“This is your Rice Crop Manager Advisory Service (RCMAS) speaking,
Do you understand?” If you were a rice farmer, probably not. That is because
RCMAS is meant for extensionists or technicians, not “ordinary” farmers.
“The Limits To Growth”
was a book authored by Donella H
Meadows, Dennis L Meadows, Jergen Randers & William W Behrens III, published
in 1972 by Potomac Associates–Universe Books, 205 pages[2] (Wikipedia), which predicted “a rather
sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity."
Almost 50 years of history proves it incorrect!
Personally, as a UP Los Baños agriculturist and a self-styled
warrior writer, I did not subscribe
to that Limits-To-Growth conclusion. This time, I’m looking at hybrid rice as a
food savior.
Taken by me 24 January 2019, the photograph above shows PH
officials in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan (Mayor Carlos Lopez with microphone), with guests led by now-Secretary
of Agriculture William Dar (pink
shirt) and founding (1986-2000) Executive Director of PhilRice Santiago R Obien (rightmost), during the
launching of the “8th National
Rice Technology Forum” at the junction of Asingan, Pangasinan and
Urdaneta City, with plantings of hybrid varieties from Bayer, BioRice, Corteva, Longpin, SeedWorks, and SL Agritech.
On hybrid rice, Francisco
Malabanan, Senior Technical Consultant of SL Agritech Solutions, says on the scientific logic in the
recommendation of primary use of hybrid rice:
Hybrid rice technology
(is) the way to food security. More than 600 thousand hectares were harvested (from)
hybrid rice during the last 2021 dry cropping season. This means the average
yield was 6.07 metric tons (MT) per hectare or 33 percent higher yield than the
average yield of inbred certified seeds of 4.55 MT per hectare.
Excellent
news! I agriculturist say.
Now, back to the RCMAS of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
On its website, the RCMAS says that it is “a digital agriculture service that
provides farmers with information geared toward increasing productivity and
profitability of rice farming through targeted integrated nutrient and crop
management.”
Anna A Mogato
says (26 July 2018, “In The Philippines, Technology Is Seeping Into
Agriculture,” BusinessWorld) that
the Rice Crop Manager (RCM) as a desktop application was launched in 2013:
Intended to be used by
the (Department of Agriculture’s) extension workers who reach out to the
farmers nationwide. The RCM recommends what farmers need to increase their crop
yield. It has so far generated 1.46 million recommendations.
So! “To increase (farmers’) crop yield” is basically the
function of the RCM which the RCMAS is based on.
To PhilRice, my immediate recommendations are:
(1)
Go beyond rice; go rice farming systems. The
Filipino farmer cannot live on rice alone!
(2)
Go beyond nutrient and crop management.
That
is to say, the DA has much more work to do beyond
the Rice Crop Manager Advisory Service!@517
No comments:
Post a Comment