SouthCot to give incentives to rice farmers

The Provincial Government of South Cotabato is set to allot Php5-20 million to buy the rice production and give cash incentives to farmers comes the harvest season in the coming months.
Governor Reynaldo S. Tamayo Jr. said there is a need to protect farmers against abusive rice traders with the continued decrease of the prices of rice commodities.
Tamayo said, with the prevailing rice prices of Php13/ kilo, this is already a break-even price to farmers and if it will continue to go down, farmers will suffer the most.
“This is an immediate solution to this problem.” He said,
Under his administration, the provincial government plans to coordinate with the National Food Authority to help the farmers.
He added, the prevailing price of the NFA is Php21/kilo, the provincial government will give an additional incentive of Php2/kilo to help farmers increase their income.
Tamayo said, to ensure that the benefits will go directly to farmers, there will be a coordination between the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist to identify their farmers, the number of hectares planted with rice and the amount of production. An identification card will also be issued to each of these farmers to ensure they are the ones who will get the incentives.
“We are under the state of emergency, we need to act right away.” He said,
For a more sustainable solution to the problem, Governor Tamayo said, there is a need to put up two soil analysis centers in the province to be able to know what crops are suitable to be planted in a certain area.
These centers will be situated at the Upper and Lower Valley area wherein farmers can bring at least 4 kilos of their soils before they plant anything on their lands.
Presently South Cotabato farmers can only produce at least 8-100 bags of rice in a hectare, while in other areas in the country, farmers can at least harvest 250-300 bags/hectare.
“It’s all about having a good farming system,” Tamayo said.