Costs and Returns Survey of Palay Production by Seed Type and Class 2005

The survey covered 630 sample palay farmers broken down as follows: Nueva Ecija - 240; Leyte - 270; Davao del Norte - 120. The domain of the study was the province, with the last completed normal cropping within July 2004 to June 2005 as the reference period. Farmers who harvested palay during the reference period were the target samples for the survey.

A three-stage sampling design was employed with the municipality as the primary sampling unit, barangay as the secondary sampling unit and the palay farmer as the ultimate sampling unit. The procedures used in the sample selection were as follows:

1. In each province, information on palay physical area, total number of palay farmers, and coverage in the GMA-Rice Program by municipality were gathered from the concerned provincial operations centers (POC) with Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPAG), Municipal Agricultural Office (MAO) and the 1999 Barangay Screening Survey (BSS) as data sources.

2. The sample municipalities were drawn using probability proportional to size (PPS) based on physical area.

3. In the selected municipalities, barangay-level information was obtained using the key informant approach. These information included physical area of palay farms, coverage or non-coverage of the barangay in the GMA-Rice Program, number of beneficiaries of the GMA-Rice Program, percentage adoption by seed type/class, availability of irrigation facilities, anticipated field operational problems and indication whether the barangay was affected by any calamity during the reference period. Four seed classes/types were considered, namely: Hybrid, Inbred Modern Certified, Inbred Modern Farmer's Produce and Inbred Traditional

4. Based on the information obtained in (3), area used per seed type/class was derived. The barangays were arranged in descending order of area devoted to the seed type and class, then the sample barangays per seed group were identified. Sample sizes were determined such that the number of sampled palay farmers per barangay was 10 and the number of sample barangays was equally allocated to the different seed groups in the province. This allocation was used since there was no sound basis on the true distribution of usage of each seed type and class in the province. However, adjustment in the distribution of samples was made depending on the actual situation in the province as verified during the data collection.

5. Independent sets of sample barangays were selected from each seed group based on the following criteria:

   • having higher palay physical area devoted to the seed type and class;
   • with minimal field operation problems; and
   • not damaged by any calamity throughout the reference period.
     This procedure implied that a barangay can be identified as sample in at least one seed group.

6. Selection of sample farmers was done during data collection using the snowball approach. This procedure entailed looking for the first potential sample farmer then searching for the rest based on referrals of the previous samples. This was done by first obtaining the names and addresses of palay farmers living in the barangay from the office of the barangay captain or any barangay key informant during the conduct of the survey. From this list, the enumerator selected any palay farmer as the first potential sample, or, if no list was available, information on one palay farmer as a potential sample will do. A set of screening questions was used by the enumerator for this purpose. Qualified sample farmers were interviewed using the CRS questionnaire and his name and address were written in the CRS List of Sample Palay Farmers.