The National Irrigation Administration Cordillera (NIA-CAR) is setting its sights on a significant expansion of contract farming in the region, planning to increase the area covered by more than 500 percent. This move comes as farmers participating in the contract farming program begin harvesting their crops.
Under the contract farming program, members of irrigators’ associations (IAs) who enter into contracts with NIA-CAR receive ₱50,000 worth of farm inputs per hectare. In return, the agency purchases the harvested crop at a price equivalent to five metric tons per hectare. The rice is then sold through NIA-CAR’s Kadiwa stores at a fixed price of ₱29 per kilogram, offering affordable rice to consumers.
Currently, the program covers 496 hectares of rice farms, primarily in the provinces of Kalinga and Apayao. So far, about 10 percent of these areas have successfully completed their harvest.
Data from the Department of Agriculture – Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR) show that Kalinga farmers produce an average of five tons of rice per hectare, while Apayao yields between seven and eight tons per hectare. Both figures surpass the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) 2022 national average of 4.17 metric tons per hectare.
Looking ahead, NIA-CAR aims to increase the coverage of farm contracts to 2,700 hectares by the end of next year. This expansion would boost the availability of low-cost, fixed-price rice by more than five times, helping to stabilize rice prices in the region.
