Mindanao farmers learn about sustainable straw management from RiceStrawPH

Farmers and extension agents witness the operation of
small round baler in Mlang, North Cotabato.

Rounding up their initiatives to educate farmers and encourage mechanized straw collection in North Cotabato and Bukidnon this October, IRRI, in partnership with PhilRice, Philippine Carabao Center and Philmech held their last two demonstrations last October 1 and 4. The project runs under the DA-BAR funded “Development of Sustainable Rice Straw Practices and Technologies for Food, Feed and Bioenergy in the Philippines” (RiceStrawPH).

The demonstration aims to promote mechanized straw collection for sustainable management of rice straw for alternative uses to minimize the effect on the environment such as greenhouse gas emissions from in-field burning and anaerobic decomposition in the field. The Chief of the Office of Provincial Agriculture (OPAG) in North Cotabato, Ms Abedece Curtiz, gave full support to the initiative, remarking that the rice straw baler being used to collect rice straw can help farmers make money by using it as feeds, as medium of mushroom production, and to generate bioenergy.

Enhancing livelihoods through rice straw: farmer groups learn about rice straw collection options

The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), Philippine Carabao Center (PCC), and IRRI conducted a rice straw baler demonstration at the PhilRice Central Experiment Station in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija for the project “Development of Sustainable Rice Straw Management Practices and Technologies for Bioenergy, Food, and Feed in the Philippines”, or RiceStrawPH.

The RiceStrawPH project aims to develop and provide alternative uses of rice straw in order to add value to the rice byproduct, instead of farmers simply burning them. “We are looking for ways where Filipinos can enhance their livelihoods through innovative uses of rice straw, like mushroom growing and ruminant feed.” said Dr. Caesar Tado of PhilRice, one of the project leaders. 

“In the Philippines, we have legislation that prohibits the burning of rice straw, and Nueva Ecija also has a local ordinance that discourages this practice. This helped the Philippines significantly decrease rice straw burning incidence from more than 90% in the early 2000s, to around 30% in 2017.” he added.