TACLOBAN CITY – Farmers from different towns here in Leyte were encouraged to go on mechanization to further boost their productivity.
The call was made by Patrick Renucci, who is behind of a company that promotes farming mechanization, during a rice summit held this town Tuesday (Oct.17).
Renucci, together with his wife Rachel Tan, is behind of the Che Yi Agventures which promotes rice mechanization through its program dubbed ‘Rice Revolution of Renucci Partnership Program.’
“Renucci partnership tries to aim to (help the) farmers improve their ways of farming and to improve their yield and income of course, “Renucci stated during the forum held at the Leyte Academic Center, this town.
In accordance with this aim, the group will provide seeds with a zero interest loan, inputs, pesticides, and help in problems like diseases and mushrooms.
The farmers will do the planting with Che Yi Agventures will do the harvesting through a mechanized process since it produces a good quality of rice because it has a low moisture content.
For farmer assistance, they have farmer technicians to attend to them. They will also conduct training on good farming practices, fertilization computation, fertilizer application, mechanized or manual transplanting and disease prediction techniques.
Interested farmers should meet the criteria for the partnership. First, their farmland must be irrigated and accessible to the harvester. Second, only one variety of seed which is the RC300 will be utilized and 100% of the harvest must be sold to Renucci.
A contract will be signed between the Renucci group and the farmers stating that they should follow the package of technology required by the company which will be followed by the land preparation and planting in order to reach their goal of 175 bags or more.
Renucci said that they are optimistic that if farmers in Leyte will follow their model or structure and join their program, they can show the rest of the country that farming is successful.
They envision to make Leyte as the country’s premier rice granary.
“The rice processing center is still in phase one. Soon on May or June, it will be done. It’s a landmark here in the whole of Visayas,” Tan-Renucci said.
The Chen Yi Agventures have recently started a partnership with the provincial government of Leyte to continue its effort for the resilience of farming communities after the devastation of super typhoon ‘Yolanda’ in 2013. (EMILY MONTALLANA, LNU Student Intern)