NIA-Bicol aims to sell more cheap rice via contract farming expansion

LEGAZPI CITY - The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) 5 (Bicol) targets to expand the contract farming program with more than 3,000 hectares of rice fields to be planted by next year. During Tuesday's "Kapihan sa Bagong Pilipinas" forum at the NIA-5 office in Naga City, NIA regional manager Gaudencio John De Vera said this would be done to produce and sell more Bagong Bayaning Magsasaka (BBM) rice being sold to vulnerable sectors for a much lower price of PHP29 per kg. He said the additional 3,000 hectares would be distributed to the region's six provinces through NIA-assisted Irrigators Associations (IAs). "We are expecting at least 50 IAs in Bicol that will be our partners for next year's contract farming," he said. De Vera said NIA-5 harvested 200,000 bags of palay from only 1,500 hectares so far this year. "With 3,000 hectares, we are expecting more than 400,000 bags of palay to be harvested. With this expected harvest, cheaper, newly harvested rice will be available to our vulnerable sectors," he said in an interview. He noted that NIA-5 has an additional PHP1.5 billion budget for solar irrigation projects that will be implemented in 48 sites in the region, where 864 hectares were identified as new areas that can be irrigated. "NIA's solar irrigation projects are in accordance with the desire of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to further strengthen the administrator-irrigation infrastructure development and his Build, Better, More Agenda to achieve food security for Filipinos," he said. Source: Philippines News Agency