Tabuk City braces for Guinness Book record

by L. Lopez

Tabuk City, Kalinga (13 June) -- This newly created city of the Cordillera Region is eyeing for a title in the Guinness Book of World records by its Longest Hybrid Rice Linudag to be shown on its first foundation day anniversary, June 24.

The Longest Hybrid Rice Linudag will be set on the 7-kilometer thoroughfare entrance of the city stretching from Barangay Bulanao to the poblacion.

Linudag is the Kalinga indigenous way of cooking rice in bamboo tubes.

Organizers of the show wanted to ask the formal handing down of the title to Tabuk City as the Hybrid Rice Capital of the Philippines, having been informally alluded to in past several occasions.

Since the introduction of hybrid rice technology by the Department of Agriculture (DA) sometime in the early ninety's, then to a group of rice farmers here, hybrid rice production in the province spread like contagious disease among farmers.

Today, hybrid rice farming is a major industry in the city and has reached commercial level, with Tabuk City once winning a national award as Top Hybrid Rice Seeds Producer of the country.

That was the time when Tabuk became a top supplier of hybrid rice seeds to other provinces like Ilocos Norte, Nueva Ecija, Isabela and Pangasinan.

Earlier study conducted by the PhilRice confirmed that the city is conducive to production of hybrid rice and other certified rice varieties because of its naturally blended climatic and soil conditions.

Because of the booming hybrid rice industry, DA has identified the province one of its areas for hybrid rice commercialization program.

Because of this, DA is pouring down package of support to the program like provision of pre and post-harvest facilities, additional hybrid and certified rice seeds subsidies and more farm interventions.

Among the latest support facilities delivered to the province by DA includes 23 units flatbed dryers, multi-purpose drying pavements (MPDPs), seed laboratory and Bio-N laboratory.

Government through the DA is now introducing a farming technology to help farmers cut the cost of their inputs, under the Modified Rapid Composting Program (MRCP), making use of farm "waste materials" in the production of organic compost fertilizer. (PIA-Kalinga)