Mechanization of rice, corn farms to get P4.26-B fund

The Department of Agriculture wants to boost the government’s outlay on farm mechanization by 31 percent to P4.26 billion in 2015 from P3.25 billion this year.

Agriculture officials said they believed that aside from absorbing idle farm laborers, the domestic industry of manufacturing farm machines was crucial in replenishing the ranks of farmers, especially with younger people.

“If the level of farm mechanization in rice and corn farm were to reach a threshold of 3 horsepower per hectare (hp/ha), this can attract young people into farming,” said Rex L. Bingabing, executive director of the Philippine Center for Post-Harvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech).

“The younger generation will realize that working in a farm is not all about putting out a lot of hard physical labor under the sun,” Bingabing said.

Currently, the use of machines in rice and corn farms is at 2.3 hp/ha. At a national average, covering all crops, farm mechanization is pegged at 1.2 hp/ha.

Bingabing said the government’s goal was to achieve a national average of 4 hp/ha, or the current rate in Thailand.

Bingabing said that 3 hp/ha for rice and corn was achievable by 2016 because the DA has set for this year a farm mechanization investment package totaling P3.25 billion, including P2.48 billion for rice farms and P769 million for corn farms.

For 2015, the DA is pushing for a total of P4.26 billion, including P2.77 billion for rice and P1.49 billion for corn.

According to PhilMech, the amounts cover the acquisition of machines for qualified farmer-organizations for a program under which the government shoulders 85 percent of the cost of machinery.

Bingabing said that rising mechanization level would not only lower the cost of production of the staple grains over the long term. This would also address the issue of an aging population of farmers, which was slowly causing a labor shortfall in some areas of the country.

“Most rice farmers are within the age bracket of 40 to 59 years although a high percentage of farmers aged 60 and older were noted in Camarines Sur and Iloilo,” said Bingabing, citing findings from PhilMech research.

Even then, a joint effort between PhilMech and the University of the Philippines in Los Baños showed that 22 percent of farms covered by their 2013 study experienced labor shortage during peak planting and harvesting period.

“Planting and harvesting activities typically account for 63 percent of total labor requirement or 45.4 man-days per hectare,” Bingabing said.

As for general fears of machines displacing human laborers, Bingabing said the DA was developing a program that would enable farm hands to make mechanization an employment opportunity, mainly by giving training.

“They can be welders, assemblers, operators and mechanics of farm machinery,” he said.