Governor Ramon Guico III on Friday urged farmers to join the provincial government’s corporate farming program following the success of its pilot testing that produced higher yield and cut farming cost.

During his State of the Province Address (SOPA) for the province’s 444th founding anniversary held at the Capitol building here, Guico underscored the importance of agriculture.

Guico said the success of the corporate farming pilot testing proves that once there is consolidation and unity, there can be lesser inputs for better yield.

“The simple story about corporate farming is that because it is more cost efficient, higher yield per hectare is achieved with lower cost of production,” he said.

Dry run of the project was held during the dry cropping in 2022-2023, with four farmer cooperative associations covering 66.03 hectares.

It yielded reduced palay production cost per hectare by 9.08 percent or PHP6,464 for hybrid and 8.04 percent or PHP5,091 for inbred palay, as compared to the baseline data from PHP71,200 to PHP64,736 for hybrid and from PHP63,320 to PHP58,229 for inbred per hectare, he added.

Guico said that for the cost of production for palay per kilogram, there was a reduction of 18.73 percent for hybrid and 20.80 percent for inbred palay.

“An increase of 10.62 percent in yield per hectare or additional 14.40 cavans for hybrid from the average yield per hectare of 6.06 metric tons or 121 cavans and 13.87 percent for inbred or additional 16.39 cavans as compared to the average yield of 5.09 metric tons or 102 cavans were achieved on the pilot,” he said.

In 2023, the covered area of the corporate farming project increased to 154.55 hectares and it produced 773 metric tons of palay, Guico said.

“This translates to more savings in fertilizer, water supply, and labor cost,” he added.

In partnership with the Philippine Center for Post-Harvest and Mechanization, participating farmer cooperatives received six units of hand tractors, 10 units of combine harvester, two units of multi-pass rice mill, and one unit walk behind a transplanter.

Guico said the participants in this year’s corporate farming program include around 1,000 members of different farmer cooperatives and associations from the province’s six congressional districts.

Corporate farming is a flagship program of the Guico administration, which aims to enhance food production and transform farming into a lucrative and sustainable economic enterprise through the so-called convergence approach among farmer cooperatives and associations, local government units, the Department of Agriculture and its attached agencies, different national government entities, the private sector, and financial institutions.

It also aims to support the national government’s food sufficiency thrust under the Masagana Program for Agriculture.

Pangasinan has reached 209 percent rice sufficiency level in 2023 after rice farmers produced 1.3 million metric tons from the 267,946.14 hectares of land. The combined output of yellow and white corn varieties reached 419,577.5 metric tons. (PNA)

Photo credit: Development Bank of the Philippines Official Website