Rice production in Eastern Samar: is there a bright future?
By Luz Geneston Asio, PhD Department of Agronomy, VSU, Baybay City, Leyte Eastern Samar has been consistently ranked as one of the poorest provinces in the country (www.faq.ph). A major reason for this is the low agricultural productivity due to several reasons: frequent typhoons, lack of government support, lack of political will, old farming methods, and many others. During our one-week field work in the province this July, we travelled to interior barangays, observed crop production practices and technologies, interviewed farmers and technicians to get a picture of the real reasons for the low rice productivity of the province. A poor rice farmer in San Jose village in Borongan City Very striking across most of Eastern Samar is the widespread occurrence of uncultivated or only partly cultivated alluvial lands particularly near river systems. Such lands generally have great potential for intensive and highly productive rice production due to their generally flat topography. But most