The Philippine Rice Research Institute is making rice seeds more accessible to farmers through Lakbay Binhi, a project that brings high quality and location-specific seeds through trucks converted into mobile seed centers.
Philrice said the project was pilot-tested in three sites affected by typhoon Lando.
The agency said 82 20-kilogram bags of registered seeds were given to over a hundred farmers of Dipaculao and Casiguran in Aurora and Guimba, Nueva Ecija on Dec. 4 to 9, 2015.
Rhemilyn Relado, project lead, said Lakbay-Binhi was in response to the challenge of having the right amount of high quality seeds delivered to the farmers at the right time.
“With Lakbay Binhi, we can ensure the improvement in our farmers’ productivity and profitability, given higher yields because of adoption of high quality seeds,” Relado said.
Relado said the pilot test was done to promote the mobile seed center which would eventually cater to remote areas without seed growers.
Philrice said after the pilot-testing in Aurora and Nueva Ecija, Lakbay Binhi would be introduced to PhilRice branch stations, specially in areas where adoption of high quality seeds remained low.