A total of 1,420 farmers from the seven municipalities of Antique received certified seeds from the Department of Agriculture (DA) in preparation for the wet season starting next month.

Office of the Provincial Agriculturist rice program coordinator Hanna Lindo said in an interview Monday that 12,800 bags of certified seeds were released to recipient-farmers listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture, covering an area of 1,240 hectares.

They came from the municipalities of Belison with 1,000 bags, Bugasong with 3,250, Hamtic with 1,150, Laua-an with 3,000, San Remigio with 1,400, Sebaste with 500, and Sibalom with 2,500 bags.

Each bag contains 20 kilos of seeds.

She said the province was allocated 68,800 bags of certified seeds by the Philippine Rice Research Institute under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund Seed Component for the wet season.

“The 68,800 bags are enough to be planted in 34,000 hectares of rice area in the province,” she said.

Planting to harvesting usually take 110 days, with an expected yield of 4.5 to 5.9 metric tons of rice per hectare. (PNA)