Tawi-Tawi aims to export high quality rice
The local government of Tawi-Tawi is expanding its rice plantation areas in support of the government’s bid to achieve 100 percent self-sufficiency in the next three years.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said TawiTawi Governor Rashidin Matba has pledged to develop 6,000 hectares of new rice farmlands and improve the province’s own rice industry.
Tawi-Tawi has less than 200 hectares planted to rice, largely because it has relied on cheap smuggled rice being sold in the local commercial market.
The new rice production areas, when fully developed and productive, are expected to produce more than enough for the 100,000 citizens in the province.
“The low price resulted in the province relying mainly on smuggled rice instead of developing its rice industry,” Piñol said.
Smuggled rice coming from Vietnam are being shipped through Malaysia and brought to the provinces of Tawi- Tawi, Sulu, Basilan and Zamboanga Peninsula.
Piñol said Matba does not want Tawi Tawi to go through another rice supply crisis when Malaysia closed its border to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Last May 2016, food prices of some basic commodities in Tawi-Tawi and Sulu soared after the Malaysian government closed Sabah to traders from the southern part of the Philippine archipelago.
“Tawi-Tawi hopes to reverse its fortune, from a net importer of smuggled rice to an exporter of high quality rice to neighbouring Malaysia,” Piñol said.
The DA will also provide farm implements such as seeds, fertilizers, and mechanical equipment, as well as storage facilities and a rice- processing center.
Pinol said solar-powered irrigation projects would also be established in the rice-production areas since Tawi- Tawi has very few rivers to supply irrigation water to rice farms.
The DA has started to look at non- traditional farming areas, including Tawi- Tawi, particularly in Mindanao that can potentially be improved as the government moves toward poverty alleviation and rice self-sufficiency.
Piñol said the DA would divert its attention to areas that are not prone to typhoons, instead of the traditional farming areas in Luzon.
He is also considering Palawan and the Mindanao provinces including Samar, Basilan, Agusan, Zamboanga Peninsula, Davao and the Soccksargen due to lesser threats of climatic disturbances.
The Agri chief said the government would need to improve rice productivity through the expansion of rice farmlands by at least one million hectare this year.
The DA has already targeted to expand hybrid rice area to 600,000 to 700,000 hectares next year and as much as one million by 2020 from the current 400,000 hectares.