Facebook surprises me with this link: “M20 Hybrid: Buenavista Farmers’ Best Choice[1]” written by Lemuel Villo (30 April 2021, PhilRice.gov.ph). M20 is “Mestizo 20,” a hybrid rice. Alvin Ray U Rivera, Vice Mayor of Buenavista, Quezon, says Buenavista farmers are now harvesting as high as 8.3t/ha, more than 3 times as much as before!
In Buenavista. PhilRice first set up a trial planting in the dry season of 2018 in the town’s 25-ha demo farm. Nobody had any idea, but that year in the dry season, the dreaded El Niño came to town. Mr Villo says:
(Mr Rivera) recalled that with the shoe-sized cracks on their farms, the farmers expected no harvests at all. However, Buenavista farmers were amazed as the rice variety stood tall and produced many tillers and grains amidst drought.
The way I see it as a wide-reading agriculturist, Mestizo showed, when it mattered most, that it could withstand the lack of irrigation water in the field as well as the soil dry on top – because its roots could harvest capillary water rising up from the underground water table.
The Buenavista farmers were so happy the town increased the area of the demo farm from 25 ha in 2018 to 50 ha in 2019 – and to 100 ha in 2020. They refer to the area commonly planted as the “demo farm,” that which I see in 2 ways. One, it is a techno demo area for Mestizo 20; it is at the same time a group demo farm for growing rice. Winning ways.
(What else can they do? There is a “Buenavista Farmers” group on Facebook, but the entries do not mention that they are a cooperative – I suggest they form a multipurpose cooperative so that they can enjoy economies of scale. They can also have the young ones, out-of-school boys and girls 18-30 years of age, to work as farmhands and pay them handsomely! They are after all family.)
Now, I have a question to ask PhilRice: “Why has PhilRice not been campaigning vigorously for the planting of Mestizo 20?!”
My Google search yields this: Mestizo 20 was developed by IRRI and released in 1997 (Junelyn De La Rosa, 2003, “High Hopes On Mestizo Rice[2],” BAR.gov.ph). That was 23 years ago! It was the Hybrid Commercialization Rice Program (HCRP) that supported the development of Mestizo Rice, which is “aromatic and has better eating qualities than the popular IR64.”
Some 18 years ago, Luis P Lorenzo Jr, Adviser to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo predicted: “Mestizo Rice To Make RP Self Sufficient By 2004 – Lorenzo[3]” (Rose De La Cruz, 11 May 2002, PhilStar.com). Unfortunately, to this day PH is a rice-importing country. I don’t know what happened, but the international group supporting Mestizo Rice has failed!
The lower image above shows Secretary of Agriculture William Dar virtually conferring with IRRI officials for some collaborative projects. I am sure Mestizo Rice will come up – and this time, those rice plants will rise to the challenge of a rice-self-sufficient Philippines!@517
[1]https://www.philrice.gov.ph/m20-hybrid-buenavista-farmers-best-choice/?fbclid=IwAR3iefH-o2z3jC15bhA3oh_yJYKyYuC9R5vccSaZq0gWw6DrRyUa2v0hgW4
[2]https://www.bar.gov.ph/index.php/digest-home/digest-archives/89-2003-1st-quarter/3235-jan-mar03-high-hopes-on-mestizo-rice
[3]https://www.philstar.com/business/2002/05/11/160428/mestizo-rice-make-rp-self-sufficient-2004-151-lorenzo
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