Rice Planting In The Philippines

Table 5 presented the crops planted by the respondents. Planting season is divided into two croppings. The first crop or the respondents call it the main crop which covers from latter days of May up to mid of November while the second crop starts at the latter days of November up to the early days of February or sometimes up to the middle of April. It can be deduced from the table that during the main cropping, all of the respondents are planting rice (f=240 or 100percent). Rice is considered the staple food among Filipinos and rice are planted with enough water supplies to sustain its growth. Since the location of the respondents are in the upland area where irrigation is not feasible, planting rice is scheduled during months where the amount of rainfall is high in the country. The rice plants are rain fed with the support of water pump in times that rain fall is less. A part from rice planting, there are respondents (f=100 or 41.67percent) who are planting vegetables. The harvested vegetables are being sold to the market in order to support their daily needs. These vegetables include legumes (sitaw) that are planted along the weir of the rice fields. Meanwhile, during the second cropping majority of the farmers (f=137 or 57.08percent) are planting vegetables. The vegetables that are planted includes legumes (sitaw), eggplants and monggo beans. The respondents claimed that they gain more from vegetables though some of the respondents consider planting corn and rice.