From 50 cavans to 200 cavans per hectare
Dennis Miguel, the fellow who wanted to break the world record of 20.2 tons of palay per hectare achieved in India, did not quite make it but what he has proven is that a rainfed rice farm that used to produce only about 50 cavans per hectare can yield four times, or 200 cavans.
At the Simon’s Farm in Brgy. Luna in Santiago, Isabela where Dennis implemented the System for Rice Intensification (SRI) technique developed by Cornell University experts, he was able to produce 10.8 tons of palay (fresh weight) per hectare. That’s equivalent to 216 cavans per hectare.
On April 20, the harvesting, threshing and weighing of the palay was done by representatives of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and the Departmet of Agriculture in Region 2. Three 10-square meter areas in different parts of the farm were selected for harvesting. Many farmers as well as some government officials were present to witness the harvesting.
The farm is not ideal for planting rice because it is rainfed and the soil nutrients must have been depleted during the past many rice planting seasons. But Dennis chose to do his demo planting of SRI to see how the SRI technique will come out despite the challenging situation.
According to Eric Pungan, the owner of the farm, in the last three years, they were only able to harvest the equivalent of less than 50 cavans per hectare. It’s 70 to 77 cavans from 1.5 hectares.
The result is an eye-opener. It means that the rainfed areas in many parts of the Philippines can be made to produce high yields by following the System of Rice Intensification. The system can be adopted by smallhold farmers because it might be quite difficult to adopt in large areas where water management may be a big challenge. Under SRI, taking care of the rice plants is like gardening where the requirements of the plants are precise. Like, for instance, the use of very young seedlings with only two leaves and planting only one seedling per hill. In large farms, the young seedlings that are newly planted can be carried away by flash floods or heavy rains.
While adopting the SRI can be demanding, it is one way of ensuring viable income and food security among