Rice & “The (Hidden) Lesson Of The 40 Kilos”

Above on Facebook, PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie presents a PhilRice tutorial. Here is my free translation:

40 Kilos Of Inbred Seeds Are Enough For 1 Ha!

1.6M seeds are in 40 kilos of seeds. 85% of those will germinate, or 1.36M seeds. Only 750,000 seedlings are needed for 1 ha of rice. Why are 40 kilos of high-quality seeds enough to plant 1 ha? 20 by 20 cm is a good distance for transplanting. In 40 kilos of high-quality seeds, not only do you save on cost but also still have an extra 600,000 seedlings.

No, even today, they do not teach that at UP Los Baños, where I graduated in 1965. And PhilRice has not learned this lesson itself either, even 30 years after its creation.

Interpreting: From 40 kilos of seeds you sow on the seedbed, you get 1.36M seeds at 85% germination. You transplant the seedlings 20 cm by 20 cm apart, in squares. That’s more than enough for 1 ha, extra 600,000 seedlings for replanting dead hills.

I have been thinking: That farmer-friendly poster you see above should make an excellent eye-opener! Even to an “ordinary” farmer.

Surfing the Web, I just found that it was on the Facebook page of DA-PhilRice that the above poster was shared on 28 December 2018[1]. With my thinker’s mind on radical mode, and the teacher I have been trained, I just came up with a lesson for this teacher himself! The text I superimposed above:

The Lesson Of The 40 Kilos.

With that, I see how educating any farmer on entrepreneurship can be started on a small but exciting level. Yes, a little knowledge is a grandiose thing!

No, PhilRice geniuses did not realize what a Big Surprise they could have discovered with such Little Data. There is a little-big lesson hidden in those 79 words I italicized! The Lesson Of The 40 Kilos is:

If you know how to minimize your costs
and maximize your returns,
you are an entrepreneur!

My favorite American Heritage Dictionary says an entrepreneur is “a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture[2].” No, we are not going to teach millions of farmers to organize their activities, mind their farming operations, and assume the risks of growing a crop or livestock – too complicated to teach them all that! Yes, all we want to teach a farmer is:

“The Lesson Of The 40 Kilos.”

In an undated paper, “Bridging The Rice Yield Gap In The Philippines[3],” PhilRice Leocadio S Sebastian, Pedro A Alviola, and Sergio R Francisco were convinced that “the growth of the rice sector has become completely dependent on yield improvements.” Meaning, if you want the rice industry to grow so much, you have to increase the yield by so much.

I may have agreed with them before, but today, to grow the PH rice industry bigger & faster, I insist on my serendipitous discovery:

“The Lesson Of The 40 Kilos.”@517

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[1] https://www.facebook.com/rice.matters/posts/2211658825532872?comment_id=2229017013797053&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D

[2] https://www.thefreedictionary.com/entrepreneur

[3] http://www.fao.org/3/x6905e/x6905e0b.htm