During yesterday’s Corn Field Day and Harvest Festival at Paglaum Village, in Bacolod City’s Barangay Mansilingan, Negros Occidental provincial agriculturist, Atty. Japhet Masculino, revealed their typical three tons per hectare yield for corn was now higher at an average six to eight tons per hectare.

He credited mechanization for the increased productivity.

The provincial official explained, yellow corn was planted on a three-hectare demo farm last June and was later harvested using mechanical corn harvester technology, which took less time than traditional methods.

Masculino called mechanization “the future of agriculture” and said it can help solve labor shortage problems.

Earlier this year, during the Philippine Sugarcane Farming Mechanization Expo, which took place at the Sugar Regulatory Administration compound in Bacolod City, Senator Juan Edgardo ‘Sonny’ Angara said, “Farming mechanization can increase land productivity by facilitating quality cultivation.”

“It can improve our farmers’ livelihood and ultimately reduce poverty,” he added./WDJ