Dominican Republic

General Information

· Main climates: Tropical Wet and Dry

· Total land area: 4 873 000 ha

· Internal renewable water resources: 20 km³

· GNP per capita, 1998: PPP$ 4 337

· Main food consumed: Rice, Oil & fat, Sugar & honey, Fruits, Wheat

· Rice supply, 1999: 64.3 kg paddy/capita/year

Basic Statistics

Producing Zones and Cropping Seasons

The Yuna and Cuma River basins are major rice producing areas of the country. Rice, however, is grown also in other provinces/zones.

Two rice crops are planted in a year

Production Practices

The following figure shows the harvested areas from different ecologies during 1995-2000 period.

Rice-rice, rice-ratoon rice, rice-other crops (beans and other food legumes) are the main cropping systems. Land plowing and harrowing are done in dry conditions and then puddling and levelling is done in wet conditions. The wet land preparation, however, is increasing due to the increasing use of small and two-wheel tractors. Both transplanting and direct seeding are used in crop establishment. Most of planted varieties belong to indica type. More than 85 percent of rice areas are planted to high yielding varieties.

Farmers generally applied fertilizers and other agro-chemical in rice production. The rates of applied fertilizers, however, have decreased due to lack of credit and input supply.

Constraints and Issues of Sustainable Production

There are several constraints to sustainable rice production in Dominican Republic. Following are the majors:

• Limited irrigation water supply and poor maintenance of irrigation infrastructure.

• Poor drainage in the Yuma and Camu river basins, while salinity in valleys basins of the Yaque North of Dajabon.

• Yield potentials of irrigated rice varieties have reached a plateau.

• Weed competition: Hereteranthera reniformis, Echinoloa colonum, Ischaemum rogosum.

• Blast, Rice Hoja Blanca Virus, Helminthosporium oryzae, Corticium sasaki, Cercospora oryzae.

• Insects: Lissorhoptrus orizophilus, Panaquina sp. Thrips, Spodoptera frijiperda, Solubea sp.

• High production cost, lack of credit supply

• National policy of maintaining low food (rice) costs for urban consumers.

The following table shows that rice production costs

Rice yield has showed a declining trend since 1990. Sustainable rice production requires new policy, which gives priority to credit and input supply as well as repairing or improvement irrigation systems.

Research and Development Institutes

· Encargado Division Apoyo a la Producion, Calle Bani No.2 Reparto Yuna Bonao, Dominican Republic; Tel (809) 5252881.

· Cenda Juma, Centro Norte de Desarollo Agropecuario, Juma, Bonao

· Fomento Arrocero, La Fenda, Santiago

· Universidad Agraria Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo

· Departamento de Semillas, Secretaria de Estado de Agricultura, A.P. 24, San Cristobal, Phone: 528-7317 Fax: (1809) 528-3939