Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said on Wednesday the provincial government will provide more assistance to farmers such as mechanization and farm personnel to boost local rice production this year.

“This is also in support to our President Bongbong Marcos’ rice sufficiency program,” the governor said in his New Year message.

He said the province will continue to provide subsidies to rice farmers and hire job order workers to assist them in all phases of the planting cycle.

During President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s visit to the province last October, Lacson received from Marcos a certificate of award for the palay seeds intended for 100 farmers under the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).

In 2021, data from the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist showed that Negros Occidental has about 325,000 metric tons of average annual rice production, with an average monthly rice consumption requirement of 600,000 bags.

The province’s rice sufficiency level ranges from a high of 95 percent to a low of 85 percent depending on climatic conditions.

Meanwhile, Bago City, dubbed the “rice bowl of Negros Occidental” for its vast rice fields, is expected to recover in production in 2022 after a slight decrease in average yield in 2021 due to several calamities that hit the province, City Agriculturist Carlito Indencia said.

Recognized by the DA as one of the top rice-producing local government units in the country, the city just south of Bacolod surpassed its target of 4.4 metric tons (MT) per hectare after hitting a production output of 4.43 MT to 4.47 MT during the period from 2018 to 2020.

In the first half of last year, more than 5,000 small farmers received certified rice seeds worth PHP17 million from the national and local governments.

About 15,000 bags of certified seeds, weighing 20 kilograms each, were released by the DA to identified rice farmers under the RCEF. (PNA)