SEEDWORKS Philippines, Inc. seeks to increase areas in the Davao region for its US-88 hybrid rice variety to help rice farmers increase output, President and General Manager Carlos Saplala said yesterday.
Mr. Saplala told reporters they have covered about 10,000 hectares for the US-88 hybrid rice variety and will increase this by 50%.
“The Davao region is very conducive to produce rice because of good soil and with this kind of variety it has very good grain quality,” he said.
The company is pushing its long-grained rice variety after a campaign in Central Luzon.
Aside from benefiting from the local climate, the hybrid rice variety is also tolerant to typical crop diseases such as bacterial leaf blight that impede the production of traditional rice varieties.
Mr. Saplala noted that if farmers plant the US-88 rice, they can sell this from P1 to P2 higher because of good quality. — Maya M. Padillo
