The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture held a series of discussions with rice farmers and municipal agricultural officers from the Philippine provinces of Laguna and Nueva Ecija to explore the use of rice straw for bioenergy.
The discussions were conducted to identify challenges, opportunities, and innovations in implementing local and national policies on rice straw management.
Using rice straw for bioenergy, fertilizer, mulching, livestock feed, or mushroom substrate is seen as an alternative to burning rice straw which causes air pollution and emission of greenhouse gases.
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Sustainable Rice Straw Management book now available for download
Sustainable Rice Straw Management is an open access book that provides a wide array of options for rice straw management that are potentially more sustainable, environmental, and profitable compared to current practice.
Philippine upcycling initiative turns rice straw into inexpensive, nutritious livestock feed
Ruminants like cattle, carabao (water buffalo), and goat are an efficient way to produce food because, unlike swine and poultry, they efficiently convert even low-quality plant residue into meat and milk. As such, ruminants are not only an important source of nutrition and income for farmers but also help address the need for more sustainable agricultural systems by reusing agricultural by-products such as rice straw.
Stepping up efforts to make the most out of rice straw in the Philippines
In intensive flooded rice systems that predominate in much of Asia, the management of crop residues can be a problem. With two or three crops grown each year, there is not enough time for the residues to break down and be incorporated into the soil. The Philippines produces approximately 15 million tons of rice per annum and this generates about 11 million tons of rice straw. In the past, farmers manually harvested rice and plowed the rice straw back into their fields. However, increased mechanization and, in particular, the use of combine harvesters leave more rice straw that is difficult to plow back into the soil.
