Department of Agriculture Undersecretary for Rice Industry Development Leocadio Sebastian over the weekend said the high palay farmgate prices in 2023 have been beneficial to farmers who are now encouraged to pursue their noble livelihood despite all current challenges.

Sebastian also raised this observation during Wednesday's briefing of farmers and various rice stakeholders during the Ugnay Palay 35th National Rice R4D Conference in Nueva Ecija.

According to Sebastian, in 2022, the rice industry was beset by extremely high fertilizer prices. The cost of production was P14.96 per kilogram and the average dried palay price was P17 per kilogram so farmers only earned P2.48 per kilogram, he said.

But in his visit to Isabela Saturday last week, Sebastian said farmers told him that they are happy with the current high palay prices at the farmgate and he got confirmation of this reality at the 35th National Rice R4D conference held at the Philippine Rice Research Institute held on November 29 to December 1, 2023.

One indication of good palay prices is that many seed growers sell their seeds as palay instead of as certified seeds for planting. "This is the first time that in the wet season crop, walang nagrereklamo na mababa ang palay prices, farmers are happy", Sebastian said.

In his briefing to participants at the Ugnay Palay confab, he cited another experience of a rice mill in Isabela which is able to enjoy a milling recovery of 70 percent of good quality rice which it sells for P49 per kilogram. The mill also utilizes the darak for feeds and rice hull to produce electricity, thus reducing its electricity cost to about P5 per kilowatt hour for the processing plant.

Despite such promising outlook, he laments that the national yield is still low at 4 tons per hectare when some farmers manage a yield beyond 6 tons.

This shows we have a big problem in scaling many of our technologies, despite the dissemination of volumes of published new technologies and products being turned out by the PhilRice.

Another factor is the challenge of the country's soil fertilty which is characterized as moderately suitable and moderately low. "Our usual recommendation of NPK fertilization no longer works. We have to apply balanced soil nutrition and technology. Agroecological intensification can give us higher yield along with location-specific approach and more sustainable production," Sebastian stressed.