Our farmers, rice farmers included, are not productive and remain poor because of their small fragmented landholdings. The previous columns elaborated on ways of overcoming this constraint by consolidating the small farms into larger management units by: 1) contract growing, 2) through cooperatives and irrigators associations, and 3) by lifting the limits to farm land ownership imposed by agrarian reform.
Our farmers, rice farmers included, are not productive and remain poor because of their small fragmented landholdings. The previous columns elaborated on ways of overcoming this constraint by consolidating the small farms into larger management units by: 1) contract growing, 2) through cooperatives and irrigators associations, and 3) by lifting the limits to farm land ownership imposed by agrarian reform.
The third way unfortunately is not forthcoming anytime soon because of the adverse political implications.
Another approach, complementary to the above, is by effectively multiplying the physical land area by relay cropping i.e. growing two or more crops in succession on the same piece of land within the year.
See full article at Manila Bulletin
