With less land and exploding population, yield increase will have to come
from the rice plant itself, using modern technology. Since 1990, the Philippines
have produced over 100 new rice varieties. However, only about 15-20 percent of
the rice fields are planted with new rice varieties.
Thus the Philippine Rice Research in 1994 created a national seed network
called Seed Net with 100 seed centers serving as point of sales. Seed
centers multiply foundation seeds right in the farmers€™ locale, and sell the
seeds to commercial seed growers for further multiplication.
A single seed net member with 5 hectares and yield of 4 tons seed/ha can
support 100 commercial seed growers. These seed growers, in turn, can produce
enough seeds to support 25,000 farmers. This link, however, has not fully
materialized because of lack connectivity and real time exchange of information.
Commercial seed growers are not aware of the Seed Net stocks. The Seed Net on
the other hand, does not know where to move their stocks.
Mobile phones will enable seed growers and seed centers to link together
and share a real-time seed stock inventory system. The system will have an sms
server to handle incoming data and query, and a database to process data,
directory, and report generation.
This research hopes to (1) develop a real-time seed stock inventory system;
(2) enable farmers to query seed stock thru sms; (3) link breeding centers, seed
net, and commercial seed growers; (4) and spur a seed reservation system.
