HARVEST. A farm worker sprays pesticide on a farm on Aug. 21, 2023. Nicolasito Calawag, Antique Office of the Provincial Agriculture head, said on Tuesday (Aug. 22) traders are now offering higher buying prices to farmers harvesting early. (Photo courtesy of Gali Magbanua)
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – Traders are offering farmers between PHP22 and PHP24 per kilo from the previous month's buying price of PHP12 to PHP14 for rice harvested before September to October.
"The harvest for first cropping started only this August on almost 2,000 hectares of farmland,” Nicolasito Calawag, Antique Office of the Provincial Agriculture (OPA) head, said in an interview Tuesday.
He added that the peak of the harvest among farmers will be next month until October.
Antique has a total rice land of 43,000 hectares, but the towns of Barbaza, Belison, Bugasong, Culasi, Hamtic, Laua-an, Pandan, Patnongon, and Tibiao are having early harvests this August because of the irrigation system.
“Farmers in the towns having early harvest also planted fast-growing varieties such as RC 10 and 27 that only takes 90 to 110 days from planting to harvesting,” Calawag said.
He said Antique harvested around 3,000 metric tons in 2022, which the OPA expects to match this year.
With the total harvest last year, Antique was then self-sufficient in terms of rice, Calawag said.
“Antique usually is self-sufficient in rice, but then because of free trade we could not control rice traders to ship out the production to other provinces,” Calawag said.
He said traders ship the rice in Antique to other provinces like Capiz, Negros Occidental, Cebu, and other places.
Calawag said farmers in Antique consider the rice as a “cash crop” and that they are prone to sell their harvest to traders whenever their need arises like for the school supplies of their children this August 29 school opening. (PNA)
