BUTUAN CITY - To maximize farm mechanization and increase of production in the Caraga Region, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is training farmers on how to use the modern Combine Rice Harvester (CRH) machine, officials said Thursday.

The DA through the Regional Agriculture Engineering Division (RAED) is providing training on PhilRice CRH to thousands of farmers in four provinces and six cities in Caraga region.

The training is being undertaken by the DA’s Engineering Division and DA’s Regional Seed Division.

The training is being spearheaded by Caraga DA Regional Executive Director Ricardo Regis.

Farmers are trained how to operate and familiarize themselves with the CRH farm machine.

The farm machine is manufactured by Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) Central Experiment Station based in Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija in collaboration with the Briggs & Stratton Corporation.

Each region in the country was provided with such farm implement for demonstration purposes so that farmers can appreciate its usefulness and advantages and will eventually adopt it in their respective farms.

The machine has outstanding features as it combines harvesting, threshing, cleaning, and bagging.

It can harvest one hectare of crops a day with grain losses of only 1 to 3 percent. It has lower harvesting cost compared to traditional. It is lightweight and small, easy to operate, designed for local condition and locally manufactured, officials said.

They said the mechanization is a step to address problem on losses incurred both in the production and post production operations affecting the agriculture industry and forms part of the implementation of agricultural mechanization program under Republic Act 8435 otherwise known as the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act.