Actually, already in 2015, or 5 years ago, with UPLB Professor Rene Rafael C Espino as Project Leader, our Los Baños graduates group revolutionized the growing of rice by lecturing to agrarian farmers in Pangasinan and La Union who were under the supervision of the Department of Agrarian Reform, via the project Agrarian Reform Community Connectivity & Economic Support Services, ARCCESS – reflected in the above paradigm-changing technoguide.This was outside the ageing formula of farmer education by either the Philippine Rice Research Institute, PhilRice, or the International Rice Research Institute, IRRI. Neither PhilRice nor IRRI had an analogous technoguide, nor today. Our group was under UMIC International based in Pasig City; everyone in our consultants' team contributed to the volume. It was my idea, and I composed it, desktop-published it into a printable portable document format, pdf, or soft copy, a total of 74 single-spaced pages 8.5 in X 10 in, trim size. Not complete by all means, but you get the idea.
Unassuming, the image above is the title page, with part of the ricefield shown in the lower half. (The photograph is probably mine, shot in San Fernando City, La Union.)
The radical idea was Farmer's Choice – as you can catch a glimpse in the image below that is part of the Table of Contents. It is revolutionary, entirely new – not found in the available literature, technical or popular. You start a revolution with an idea.
Obviously, today the farmer has a choice between planting a hybrid and an inbred rice variety. But does he know why, and not simply that it was decided for him by a technician? You must assume farmers are intelligent and can make informed choices.
Thus: In land preparation, our ARCCESS guidebook points out a choice between minimum and maximum tillage, which he is familiar with. Minimum tillage is nottheoretical because direct seeding is a form of minimum tillage, and some farmers practice it. Also, direct seeding, which is getting popular, is used in the System of Rice Intensification, SRI, which Iloilo farmers have practiced in the last 6 years and found sustainable.
Even in transplanting, the farmer has options. For instance, SRI calls for 2-week old seedlings to be transplanted. The usual age of transplanted rice seedlings in the Philippines is 30 days, with full roots, which suffer transplanting shock – we do not make farmers realize that!
There is also the option of transplanting in squares say 20 cm by 20 cm, or by guesswork –seedlings stuck into soil come what may, in zigzag lines, which prevents maximum growth of the hill of rice. There is also the fact that in each hill, transplanters press in 2 or more seedlings, which then compete against each other for nutrients.
(About the language used, that’s another story!)
With our UMIC technoguide in mind, farmers should thank us UPLB agriculture graduates for teaching them that they have options on how to begin to grow their rice better than before!@517
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