Rice Mechanical Transplanter for Farmer’s convenient living

The Department of Agriculture Cordillera through its Corporate Rice Farming Project (CRFP) had a field demonstration on the use of a walk behind rice transplanter on August 9, 2017 at the rice fields of Mapaway Ipil, Tabuk City, Kalinga.

Around 10 farmer members of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Luzon-Federation of Cooperatives (EDNL-FEDCO) were invited to learn and be equipped on the machine’s operation.

The supplier of the machine was tapped to demonstrate how the machine is operated. After the demonstration, each of the farmers had their turn in operating the machine until the demo area was completely planted.

Father Allen Alligo, the head of the EDNL-FEDCO said that the demo aims to equip the farmers on the operation of the machine so that they may be able to teach other members and possible borrowers. “At least three will master the use of the machine then later on they will also be taught on the proper seed preparation”, he said.

According to Lacrinas Punio, Alternate Focal Person of the CRFP, seedling preparation for the machine and the traditional way are a bit different. The mechanical transplanters have built-in trays or seedling boxes. The seeds are grown in seedling trays or covered with polythene cellophane for larger areas that will be cut into rectangular strips (mats of seedlings) that fit into the planting trays of the transplanter.

It is also important to drain the land for at least 1-2 days before planting, allowing the soil layers to harden enough to support the transplanting machine and so that the planted seedlings will stand upright.

Punio further discussed that with the use of the machine; there will be less cost of labour, less time consumed, uniform spacing and accurate number of seedlings that leads to a higher profit.

The rice planter was turned over to the EDNL-FEDCO through the Rice Program of DA-CAR during Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol’s visit in the province on May 10, 2017.

The EDNL-FEDCO was the tapped service provider for the project to do the production, milling and marketing while the DA-CAR through the Rice Program and the Regional Agriculture Engineering Division (RAED) are the provider of the machineries to help in increasing rice

production.//