Collaborative efforts between farmers and the government saw the national yield for the second crop of 2022 averaging over six tonnes per hectare.
Agriculture Minister, Zulfikar Mustapha, during his weekly sector update programme, revealed that the improvements were a result of farmers applying the correct agronomic practices as well as government’s intervention to ensure farmers had the necessary support throughout the production cycle.
“Over the last two years, the weather conditions were very unfavourable. Although we’ve experienced this and what the pandemic has done with other input costs associated with rice production, we persevered, achieving higher production figures and yields than we did last year. When you compare 2021 production figures to that of 2022, because we are indeed harvesting the last crop of 2022, we’ve surpassed those levels. If we didn’t have the issues we had, we would’ve had a bumper crop”, Mustapha said.
