This was stated in a study report released here the other day by the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) here.

The foreign-exchange savings was generated during the period starting in 2002 wet season and ending in 2004 dry season.

PhilRice researchers, led by Flordeliza H. Bordey, Dr. Leonardo A. Gonzales, and PhilRice Executive Director Leo S. Sebastian, observed that government investments in the hybrid rice commercialization have yielded financial and economic benefit-cost ratio of 1.56 and 1.13, respectively.

The government has played an important role in the dissemination of hybrid rice technology, and its investments had paid off because the efforts had already created a certain demand for the technology.

As a result, the private sector can now lead the next phase of hybrid-rice commercialization, the researchers said.

The study shows that the hybrid-rice program is now one of the best options to increase farm production and income.

On-farm data show that it can increase yield by eight to 14 percent, as more hybrid rice farmers harvest five tons and more per hectare, compared to those of the in-bred rice farmers.

Director Sebastian said the findings suggest that the benefits from hybrid rice derived by the country have outweighed the costs of the program.

However, it was also found out by the researchers that although the hybrid-rice performance is generally superior over in-bred rice in terms of yield, this varies from place to place. This implies the need for location specificity of hybrid rice technology, the researchers said.

In this regard, the researchers have suggested that it would be better to promote the existing hybrid rice varieties in more suitable areas such as Isabela, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur and Nueva Ecija.

Research and development for location-specific crop management practices, and adaptation trials of new hybrid rice varieties could be done in less suitable areas.

Hybrid rice has been observed to have a price advantage of around 25 centavos per kilogram compared to inbred rice. This indicates a good market acceptability of milled hybrid rice due to its good eating quality.

This phenomenon is unique only in the Philippines as the prices of hybrid rice in other countries are usually discounted due to poor quality, the researchers noted.

The researchers suggested that in order to preserve this price advantage and encourage more farmers to plant hybrid rice, it is necessary to cause breeding of better hybrid rice varieties that are highyielding and have good eating quality.

In this regard, the researchers said that "strict implementation of grain standards should be practiced to ensure that incentives from marketing of quality rice will trickle down to the farm level."

The researchers said that although production cost for hybrid rice increased due to higher seed, fertilizer, pesticide and labor costs, the difference in production cost per cavan has narrowed as hybrid farmers have become more familiar with the technology, thus resulting in higher net income from hybrid rice production than from in-bred rice.