By 10 million years ago, the major cereal group had diverged from each other and distributed across the world. Wheat is the first crop to be cultivated by man and the people of Jericho were the first known to live with wheat as their primary consumption. Barley is the second to be cultivated followed by rice which is uncertain where it first cultivated, India or China.
In the Philippines, a total of 7,040,630 hectare was reported as land under cereal production. As we know, Filipinos had lived with rice as their primary consumption. But there were certain problems our country is facing due to lack of supply of rice these past few months initiating the price to increase. This problem was caused by the continuous production problem in rice that our farmers were facing because of natural calamities that impact a great deal on our rice harvest. Good to know that there were certain group of people that were collaborating to solve issues regarding this matter. Developing new form of farm techniques and practices. One way is promoting Organic Agriculture where we can have less input cost but more income profit.
We can found the country’s rising giants when it comes to production of corn, in Central Mindanao. It covers provinces of South Cotabato, Sarangani, North Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat. Way back 2008, the region produced 1, 117, 781 metric tons of corn which contributes 13% to the total corn production in the country considering them as one of the top corn producing region. However, they were facing some issues like post-harvest losses and farm to market road.
Rice and corn are the most important cereals grown in the country as this became our primary consumption and these cereals are actively present in the demo farm in Center for Bayanihan Economics (CBE). It has a total land area of 1.51 hectare for rice, which is fully organic that follows the practice of System for Rice Intensification (SRI). Previous harvest shows that CBE achieved the minimum requirement of harvest for rice which is 3-4 tons/ha., but continuous research was conducted to produce higher yield.
