President Rodrigo Roa Duterte assures farmers and other agricultural stakeholders that the government will provide full support to uplift the rural sector and improve income and productivity of rice farmers during the Grand Harvest Festival organized by the SL Agritech in Talavera, Nueva Ecija on April 5, 2017. For his part, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol reiterates the significance of rice hybridization towards the rice sufficiency target. The Department of Agriculture is set to expand hybrid rice areas to one million hectares in 2018.