Target: 500,000 hectares! Modern Upland Rice Farming In Bukidnon Ancestral Lands

Upland Rice Farming, a traditional food production program in the vast upland areas of Mindanao and other parts of the country, was formally launched by the Department of Agriculture yesterday in the Tagoloanon Tribal Domain in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
Unlike the traditional upland farming system, however, the Upland Rice Farming launched yesterday by DA Regional Office X under Director Carlene Collado will use a modern hybrid variety which could yield as much as 4 to 6 metric tons through dry-seeding in un-irrigated areas and modern farming technology.
In the ancestral domain of the Bukidnon Tagoloanon Tribe, an initial 300-hectares of under-utilized tribal lands will be planted with TH-82, a new hybrid rice variety which had been tested by the DA to be adaptable in un-irrigated areas and could be planted through dry seeding.
Yesterday’s launching was the realization of the advocacy which I started to re-introduce the traditional “Panuig” rice farming where tribal and old farming families, including those in the Bangsamoro Region, used low-yielding upland varieties to produce enough rice for their consumption for one year.
When I introduced the Special Area for Agriculture Development Program (SAAD) which I designed when I was Governor of North Cotabato and the Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran ng Kababayang Katutubo or 4K Program, I identified Upland Rice Farming as one of the components to ensure food security among poor families in the remote areas of the country.
In my personal conversations with the new Secretary of Agriculture, Francisco Tiu-Laurel Jr., I emphasized the strategic importance of developing Upland Rice Farming as a back-up program for the government’s Rice Sufficiency target.
The country has over 5-million hectares of Ancestral Lands most of which are not utilized for agricultural production and if only 500,000 could be targeted for Upland Rice Production, this would address the rice requirements of Tribal and Rural Communities.
With a conservative production estimate of just 2-metric tons per hectare, the projected area could produce at least 1-million metric tons of Upland Rice or 600,000-metric tons of milled rice.
The Bukidnon Tagoloanon Tribal association managed by lawyer Burt Estrada, a tribal elder who is also the former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, is the first tribal group to accept the program.
Hopefully, this will be expanded to other Tribal Areas all over the country and all that the DA needs to do is to incorporate the Upland Rice Farming program in the implementation of the DA-SAAD and 4Ks Program.
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