Rice & Shine? No Limits To Growth With Hybrid Varieties!

Filipino, how do you like the Rice Crop Managerwebsite staring at you like that at first sight? And what do you think a farmer would do if he were visiting the site?
(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 “8^th 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 Mogatosays (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 beyondthe Rice Crop Manager Advisory Service!@517

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[1]https://rcm.da.gov.ph/home

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth