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Central Luzon farmers, nation to benefit from BROWN4good challenge
- Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/pampanga/local-news/2016/09/17/central-luzon-farmers-nation-benefit-brown4good-challenge-498249
- Sunday, September 18, 2016
- (CLJD/MJLS-PIA 3)
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO-- Various Central Luzon farmers and farmers’ associations will benefit from the BROWN4good challenge spearheaded by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice).
PhilRice’s Be Riceposible Campaign Director Hazel Antonio said that one of the problems of the country related to agriculture is the low income of farmers, averaging P50,000 per annum.
“Our BROWN4good challenge can help solve this because one of its goals is to link farmers to food establishments and retailers and to help them directly market their produce,” Antonio explained.
She added that with this, farmers can gross an additional PhP10,000 per ton of paddy rice as compared to selling it at farmgate.
“This is a win-win situation since this strategy enables consumers to avail of brown (unpolished) rice at a cheaper price while at the same time giving the farmers an opportunity to at least double their income,” the director said.
On the other hand, DA Regional Executive Director Andrew Villacorta said that the consumption of brown rice will be a big boost to the country’s efforts of attaining rice self-sufficiency.
To achieve rice self-sufficiency, Villacorta said that we must increase our yield, planting area and milling recovery, and decrease or lower our post-harvest losses.
“At present, we have only around 63 percent milling recovery. The good news is that brown rice results to 10 percent higher milling recovery which is equivalent to an additional of one cavan for every 10 cavans of rice,” the director explained.
With these benefits, the PhilRice and DA call on the residents of Central Luzon to take part in the challenge and be advocates of brown rice consumption.
The BROWN4good challenge is a social media campaign that aims to promote brown rice as a good food.
It aims to gather social media posts with the hashtags #BROWN4good #region3. Per hashtag is equivalent to 100 grams of brown rice to be given to the less fortunate.