The growing demand of glutinous rice in the US has encouraged more farmers to propagate and go into commercial production of various native varieties of rice in the different provinces in the Cordillera region.
Such a move not only helps in a bid to preserve the centuries old deteriorating rice terraces but it would bring forth a good source of income and livelihood to farmers in the region.
The Regional Development Council (RDC) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) in the Cordillera region are encouraging thousands of farmers to go back to their traditional way of rice farming.
With the increasing demand of the native rice varieties in the world market that fetches a buying price of US $5 to US $10 per kilo, it could be a substantial income for the farmers in augmenting their meager income.
The now lucrative native rice production has attracted farmers who have abandoned their farms in the countryside in the pursuit of looking for other better income aside from rice farming because of the high production cost that the farmers have to shed and the unsustainable net income that can be derived from it.
With the new development, rice farmers have gone back and started to till their lands for the various native rice varieties, propagating them organically for the sake of producing a better export quality and a chemical based free glutinous rice varieties.
