Farmers’ Adoption of Upland PalayCheck System under Upland Rice Development Program (URDP) Implementation In Northern Philippines

The Community-based Upland PalayCheck System under the Upland Rice Development Program was used as a platform of implementation. It has eight (8) KeyChecks as farmers’ best practices and technologies in upland rice production.

The study described the socio-demographic profile, institutional factors, biophysical factors, and economic factors of the farmer respondents. Moreover, it described the perceived effectiveness of Farmers’ Field School (FFS) on Upland PalayCheck System, upland community seed banking, and community-based upland palayamanan. Also, the relevance, comparability, traceability, and ease of the practice of the technologies and practices under the Upland PalayCheck System were determined. Also, respondents’ rice production practices and the percentage of adoption under the Upland PalayCheck System were assessed. Furthermore, factors that influence the level of adoption of the Upland PalayChck System were determined.

Barangay Kilig and Caragasan were selected as the locale of the study because these were the pilot site of the project in the municipality. The study was conducted through a survey questionnaire and focus group discussions. Respondents were active participants of FFS on the Upland PalayCheck System. Qualitative data were analyzed through SPSS, however, thematic analysis was done to analyzed the reasons of respondents.

The result shows that there were more female farmers in the area. Thus, the introduction of technologies should be more gender sensitive. Moreover, the majority of them were elementary level and have limited access to training except for the said FFS. These farmers were mostly owners of their land and the majority manage more than 2 ha. Thus, they need more capital in their farm operation. Also, they get their capital from cooperatives and microfinance which may bring them deep indebtedness if they do not get a good yield. Also, farming was their major source of income in the area. Therefore, they should have given other ventures in agriculture for a living. Furthermore, they get technical advice mostly from technical experts radio and leaflets. However, extension contact was only at least once a month due to the large proportion of extension workers over a number of farmers. Furthermore, the majority of the upland areas of the farmers were low soil fertility. Also, the majority of their field received low precipitation resulting in drought. Nevertheless, upland rice farming can be considered as a good alternative crop in the uplands because of its promising higher average selling price at 25.48% of premium varieties. However, seldom of them were selling their products because it is more for their food consumption. The latest average yield (2.40 t/ha) of farmer respondents was greater than the previous average yield in the municipality (>1.0/ha).

Farmers Field School (FFS) on the Upland Community-based Palayaman System was used as a platform to disseminate the objectives of the URDP. The level of effectiveness of farmers on Upland FFS, CSB, and Upland Palayamanan was also assessed. The result shows that the conduct of Upland FFS and overall impressions to URDP were agreed to be very effective. Respondents stated that they gained more knowledge of upland rice farming and increase their yield. Moreover, they have learned to address their problems in upland rice production.