TACLOBAN CITY --- The city government is pilot testing rain-fed upland rice farming in three rural villages in a bid to improve its rice sufficiency.

Tacloban City Agriculturist Ramelo Anade said his office has been conducting the pilot testing since 2022 to look for the most appropriate technology and rice variety that can give the best yield for the farmers.

Anade said the upland land farming program uses traditional rice varieties that are resistant to drought, insect infestation, diseases and other climatological requirements.

“The production cost is low because labor cost is less, they are less vulnerable to infestation and are tolerant to drought due to their morphological characteristics,” Anade said.

In the last two years of pilot testing, Anade said the farmers were able to harvest from 3.6 to 3.8 metric tons of palay per hectare with two harvests per year. He said the yield is lower than the national average of 4.2 metric tons per hectare but local farmers’ income is not far behind due to lower production cost.

He said these rice farms are rain-fed due to the absence of irrigation in these areas. In some areas where irrigation is necessary, he said the city agriculture office uses a solar-powered irrigation system where groundwater is extracted to water the rice paddies.

He said the upland rice farms use only organic farming methods without chemical fertilizers and other synthetic input so as to avoid polluting the lowlands from the run-offs from these farms.

Anade said a total of 372 hectares of rice farms from the villages of Sta. Elena, Camansihay and Paglaum are involved in the pilot project.

“We want to identify the rice varieties that yield the best results before we scale this up in other upland villages. We still have so many areas for expansion and replication,” he added.

Anade said Tacloban City has to resort to upland rice farming to boost its rice sufficiency after thousands of hectares of rice lands were converted into subdivisions for the permanent housing sites for families that were severely affected by typhoon “Yolanda” in 2013.