DAGUPAN CITY, July 23 (PNA) — The province of Pangasinan, the third biggest rice producer in the country, is now going to full mechanization.
This was bared by Dalisay Moya, officer-in-charge of the Provincial Agriculturist Office, who noted that in some areas of the province, farmers already discarded their carabaos and cows in favor of hand tractors or big tractors.
“If you go around, you seldom see carabaos and cows plowing in the fields now,” said Moya, during the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters sa Pilipinas (KBP) forum in Dagupan on Thursday.
Moya just attended the turnover of over 100 farm machineries by the Department of Agriculture (DA) to different farmer cooperatives in Pangasinan under its AgriPinoy Farm Machinery Program at the DA Experimental and Research Station in Sta. Barbara town.
These include two units combine harvester, 34 hand tractors, 21 four-wheel tractors (small), 21 rice threshers, 48 units of waterpumps with generator sets and two big tractors.
The occassion was also attended by Governor Amado Espino Jr. who urged the farmers to use their farm machineries, which they acquired by putting up the required 15-percent equity, to improve their harvest and eventually their way of life.
Moya said with the program on farm mechanization of the DA, farmers will reap bigger harvest, lighten their load of work and reduce their expenses in their farm ventures.
She said farm mechanization is needed in Pangasinan whose farmers are harvesting more cavans of rice per hectare than their counterparts in other provinces in the country, that was why it was given the national achievement award for two years in a row since 2013.
“You don’t see farmers riding on carts pulled by carabaos or cows now. They are now riding in hand tractors converted as a mini-transport service called kuliglig or four-wheel tractors, said Molina, insinuating that because of good harvests, farmers have improved their lives and were able to acquire the right machineries that they need.
Some farmers are now in fact rising on trucks, cars and vans, indicating they have prospered and their lives have changed for the better.
In the combined harvester, the machine is used to harvest ripened palay seeds and at the same time thresh it. The finished products are rice seeds that go to the sacks after threshing.
Eduardo Gonzales. DA technical director, said by using the combined harvester, farmers need not employ about 15 workers to harvest palay and another five to thresh the same, which means big savings for them. (PNA)