Enhancing crop residues recycling in the Philippine landscape

Abstract

Recycling the crop residues of the two major crops (rice and sugarcane) in the Philippines remains to be achieved. Rice straw burning is still prevalent at 76 % of all rice farms. About 32 % of the 22 million tonnes (valued at PhP 18.41 billion compost) rice straws produced in the 4.4 Mha harvested areas are burned. It will take about 30 years or more to stop rice straw burning in the Philippines at the rate farmers are withdrawing from the burning habit. For sugarcane, 64 % of the trash, at about 3.02 billion kg of sugarcane trash, is still burned. The average annual fertiliser import for the last 10 years was 2.0 million tonnes (50 % of which was nitrogen) valued at PhP 40 billion. Recycling the residues of the two crops (rice and sugarcane) will have a large effect because 50 % of all fertilisers are used for these crops. The total compost fertiliser value of the crop residues of the two crops amounts to about PhP 25 billion (US$569 million) per year. National laws and local ordinances were enacted but monitoring and enforcement should be strengthened. Discussed in this chapter are other paths that must be explored. Farmers could be given incentives and rewards for not burning crop residues instead of the punitive approaches (legal) to enhance crop residue recycling in Philippine landscape.