PhilRIce Opening in Batang, Ligao City

PhilRice to open branch in Ligao City

The government’s Rice Research Institute, (PhilRice) will open its 7th branch station in Ligao City on March 25.

PhilRice which has made a name in rice research especially in irrigated rice lands aims to serve the major rice-growing zones of the Bicol Region and Eastern Visayas.

The 7th PhilRice branch station will be put up in Barangay Batang, Ligao City on the day that Ligao City will be highlighting Farmers’s Day as part of the celebration marking the 10th founding anniversary of Ligao as a chartered city from March 17 to 26.

Congressman Fernando V. Gonzalez of the third district of Albay welcomed the setting up of the rice research station in Ligao saying that it will “significantly contribute to the substantial increase in better methods of production which shall give rice farmers substantial increase in production and income.”

Gonzalez together with PhilRice officials and the city government of Ligao has worked hard so that this 7th rice research station will be put up in Ligao City, dubbed as Albay province’ rice granary.

The idea of putting up a branch station in Ligao City was initially presented for consideration to the PhilRice board of trustees in October 2006. This was after the so-called “Task Force Branch Stations” of the Institute saw that a PhilRice Bicol was “reasonable and justified.”

In approving the Ligao PhilRice branch, the board of trustees of the same agency have considered that Bicol is big and too far from PhilRice Los Banos to be effectively served.

Gonzalez stressed that the opening of the PhilRice station in Ligao City will serve not only as a boon to rice farmers but will redound to the overall economic upliftment of Bicol and Eastern Visayas regions.