Commercial Seed Production and Farming System Integration of Elite Traditional Rice Varieties for Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihood Generation

Rationale  

The Malvar Organic Farmers Agriculture Cooperative (MOFAC) will partner with SEARCA in the initial seed production of available seeds of three outstanding traditional upland rice varieties, namely Pirurutong, Red Rice –SM Variety and Dinorado, to jump start its commercial planting in Batangas upland environment under the corn, vegetables and coconut-based farming systems, with focus on coconut-scale insect devastated areas. MOFAC will also collaborate with the Malvar and Batangas LGUs regarding the arrangements for temporary or interim usufruct use of idle agricultural lands which have been converted for industrial or non-agricultural use. 

MOFAC partnership with SEARCA will allow development of product mixes of nutritious Traditional Rice Varieties (TRVs) and companion or relay/succession on food crops to secure healthy and diverse diets while improving livelihood and agri-preneurship cum agri-employment opportunities. Entrepreneurial skills of the farmers would be enhanced by linking them to technological innovations and access to markets and entities from the private sector.  To do this farmers’ empowerment and behavioral transformation, orientation seminars, hands-on experiential learning trainings and social engineering modalities shall be conducted. 

The project will demonstrate the food, nutrition and health security, social, economic and environmental benefits as well as food security advantages through value addition and climate change adaptation of TRVs in companion/combination with suitable diverse high-value upland crops in the food system to improve the livelihood and farm income generation of beneficiary farmers. 

The resultant seed production harvest of around 2.5 to 3.5 tons TRVs will be used in planting an aggregate commercial area of at least 30 to 35 hectares in Batangas, focusing in Malvar and the Third Congressional District and Lipa City environs. 

General Objective 

To revive upland rice varieties of high nutritional, economic value through elite traditional rice varieties (TRVs) screening, commercial seed production and integration into coconut-based and diversified farming systems in Malvar, Batangas