MANILA, Philippines -- Meet a pioneer producer of organic rice seeds for planting. He is Manuel “Nonong” Bagatsing who owns the Kahariam Organic Farm in Lipa City that is producing a lot of vermicompost and vermicast.

Several weeks back, he harvested five tons of organic rice for seed purposes, now under certification by the National Seed Industry Control Laboratory. Some five hectares are currently planted with different ages also for seed production.

Bagatsing strongly believes that there is a bright future for farmers who will be producing organic rice for the commercial market. There is an increasing demand for this kind of rice by the health-conscious population who are willing to pay a higher price than the ordinary kind.

Nonong is very upbeat in his project because he has proven that organic rice could be produced at a relatively cheap cost. He said that in an earlier planting, he was able to harvest 127 cavans of palay from one hectare. He only used 1.5 tons of ver-micast per hectare and did not use any chemical pesticide for controlling insect pests, diseases and weeds.

Even if the farmer will only harvest 100 cavans of palay from one hectare, he would already make a handsome profit. The 100 cavans when milled could become at least 50 cavans of milled rice or 2.5 tons. At the very conservative price of R40 per kilo, the gross income would be R100,000. The cost of production, on the other hand, is just about R50,000 so there is a clean profit of R50,000 per hectare in four months, according to Nonong.

That is one reason why Bagatsing is thinking of leasing farm lands that he could use to produce organic rice in a big scale.

Bagatsing has invested on irrigation facilities to make sure that his rice plants will attain their yield potential. He has two deep well pumps and also pumps water from a nearby river for irrigation. The water from the river passes through a filtration facility to make sure the water is free of harmful germs. He has also constructed a 2,000-square meter reservoir for impounding rain water.

Some of his workers trained at the PhilRice so that they are adequately equipped with the necessary technology to produce quality organic rice. Land preparation is important and so is the continuous monitoring of developments in the field.

For fertilizer, Bagatsing uses 1.5 tons of vermicast per hectare. On top of that, the plants are sprayed with vermi tea every week up to booting stage.