Rice experts are aghast that nearly nine in 10 Filipinos obtain what little they know of the staple from social media and taking those information as fact, resulting to a degree of misinformation that worries scientists at the Philippine Rice Research Institute or Philrice.
According to Philrice, an overwhelming 87 percent of Filipinos, rice farmers among them, obtain what they need to know from portals such as YouTube and even from Tiktok where the information is often inaccurate, misleading and downright false.
“The spread of science misinformation can lead to the adoption of harmful practices, which can have unfavorable effects on crop yield, farmer income, and food security. We established these pages as credible sources, in which information was checked and based on rigorous research of rice experts,” said Charisma Love Gado-Gonzales, project lead of PhilRice’s Production and Sharing of Rice S&T through Strategic Media.
Philrice has found that 1,048 of the 1,205 it surveyed online said they searched what they wanted to know of the grains on YouTube and that the bulk of over 200 it surveyed separately bared interest in obtaining farming tips on TikTok.
Virginia Rihad, the president of the Casongsong Farmers Association in Guimba, Nueva Ecija, said that as lead officer, she bears the responsibility of disseminating the latest information on rice production she often sources from social media.
“We wanted to know more about the technologies we read on print, and videos provided us with an interactive platform to deepen our understanding and see these technologies in action,” she said.
Farmer Jemalyn Ranjo from Morong, Bataan, expressed her enthusiasm for the PhilRice videos on social media as these will make farming more attractive to the younger generation.
“Through the videos, the youth see that agriculture has significantly improved through machines, making farming much easier,” she said.
Ranzcel Lanz Reyes of Bataan Peninsula State University, bared his excitement about the “new noble cause” of TikTok as he believes it serves a dual purpose of reaching more farmers and engaging the youth who will sustain agriculture.
Conducted twice a year, Lakbay Palay has also showcased the latest varieties and technologies to more than 1000 participants during the two-day event.
As a result of this development, Philrice set up social media pages of its own over the same portals and may be reached at https://www.youtube.com/@philricetv/shorts) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@rice_matters) were created based on stakeholders’ demand for rice information on said platforms.
