Rizal, Kalinga – Rizal, Kalinga garnered the “2018 Rice Achievers Awards” as one of the Outstanding Municipality in the country in terms of rice production. The award was received last May 30, 2019 at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC), Pasay.
The Rice Achievers Award is an annual event with the search was done by the Department of Agriculture (DA) in partnership with the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) to recognize the contribution of the local government units (LGUs) in the rice industry to attain rice sufficiency and security in the country.
Rizal, as the second rice producing municipality in the province with 2,957-hectares of its area devoted for rice production, received an incentive award of P1 million worth of projects.
In 2018, Rizal produced a total of 10,273.50 MT for wet season and 16,701.90 MT for dry season of rice. It has an average yield of 4.08 MT for wet season and 5.96 MT for dry season.
Cynthia A. Villar, Senator and Chair of the Committee on Agriculture commended the farmers as well as the local government units on their significant contributions to the rice production amounting to 19 Million MT, last 2018.
In her message, Senator Villar mentioned there are various developments in the Duterte administration that assisted the rice farmers, like the free irrigation system and if the concern on rice farmers is addressed, the problem on poverty in the Philippines will be lessened. The Philippines has around 8 million farmers, 3.5 million or 45-percent of which are rice farmers.
Meanwhile, Isabelo Dawaton, Municipal Agriculturist of Rizal expressed his gratitude for the continuous support of the DA to the municipality and in attaining the rice achievers award.
Dawaton added these achievement should further motivate the local government and farmers to implement new technologies, try new rice varieties, and use appropriate machineries being introduced.
Meanwhile, the Province of Kalinga received a special citation under the Outstanding Province Category, having been one of the Outstanding Provinces in rice production last 2012, 2014, and 2017.
The Babalag Annayop Irrigators Association, Inc. from Rizal, Kalinga also won a special award under the Small Water Irrigation System Association Category.
By HDanis