On top of their years of experience in cultivating rice, farmers in Matanao, Davao del Sur express desires to learn new skills as 25 members of the New Murcia Multipurpose Cooperative (NMMC) have enrolled in Rice Machinery Operations NC II.
NMMC members led by chairman Michael P. Bajenting met the trainers and scholarship personnel of RTC-KorPhil Davao on July 4, 2023 for the profiling of trainees under the scholarship program of the Rice Extension Services Program (RESP) component of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).
To start second week of July, the RMO NC II is a 29-day training which covers the operations of the various rice machineries from land preparation, crop establishment, crop care, harvesting and threshing, drying, and milling of rice. Additional three days is also allotted for the entrepreneurship training of the scholars.
The said TESDA training will be beneficial since the Department of Agriculture- PhilMech reported the mechanization level of rice farms in the Philippine now at 2.679 hp/ha, a marked increase from the 2.31 hp/ha recorded in 2013. The increase means that more machineries are available for rice farming, with a large of number were distributed by DA-PhilMech under the Mechanization component of RCEF. With the RMO NC II training, the scholars will be equipped in the standard operation and maintenance of machineries in rice production and processing, in the hopes to see a rice-secure Matanao
