Drenching to Spraying! Pressurized Spray Irrigation To Modernize Rice Farming

The Mindanao Development Authority’s (MinDA) advocacy to introduce modern pressurized spray irrigation and fertigation technology and the Upland Hybrid Rice Seeds is expected to revolutionize rice farming in Mindanao boosting productivity while addressing poverty.

For an initial investment of P200,000 to establish a pressurized irrigation system, a farmer could provide water in a one-hectare area and plant Upland Rice at least twice a year with an average production of 12 metric tons.

The cost to irrigate one hectare using the traditional water drenching system built by the National Irrigation Administration is about P450,000.

The high development cost and the long period of time required to construct a gravity type system had caused a huge backlog in the government’s irrigation program where less than half of the 4.9-million hectares of rice harvested area is provided with water.

The traditional gravity-type irrigation system has also confined rice farming in flat lowlands leaving farmers in the undulating and highlands dependent on the seasonal precipitation to be able to plant rice.

When I was Secretary of Agriculture, I directed the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) to provide the Philippine Rice Research Institute with funds to conduct a study on the feasibility of using pressurized drip or spray irrigation to grow rice in the uplands.

While the funds were given to PhilRice as early as 2019, the bureaucratic process in fund utilization and procurement delayed the implementation of the project and it is only now that PhilRice is undertaking the study.

MinDA, a small agency with limited funds, is now working on the establishment of Upland Rice Farming using the modern pressurized irrigation technology and upland hybrid seed variety TH 82 of US Agriseeds.

Pilot Farms have been identified in the first nine provinces funded by MinDA and supported by PhilRice, Seedworks Phils. which distributes TH 82 seeds, local government units and farmer-cooperators.

The first trial will be an off-season upland rice farming from August to November while the second trial will be early next year in time for the traditional upland rice planting season.

The second trial will include island provinces like Camiguin, Dinagat, Basilan, Sulu and Tawitawi and the Island Garden City of Samal.

A successful trial in upland rice farming using the pressurized spray irrigation and hybrid seeds could revolutionize rice farming in Mindanao and utilize thousands of hectares of idle land, mostly in the Indigenous People’s Ancestral Domains.

#KungGustoMaramingParaan!