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WITH the
increasing number of drying farmlands in the country and
amid the current rising costs of agricultural crops, a
very timely and important conference will be hosted this
month by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the
India-based International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat).
The two
agencies are sponsoring the “National Dryland Agriculture
Research, Development and Extension Conference on April 17
and 18 at Oxford Hotel in Clark Field, Pampanga.
With the
theme “Energizing research, development and extension for
sustainable dryland agriculture in the Philippines,” the
conference aims to assess the situation of dry- land
agriculture in the Philippines and Asia, and lay the
groundwork for the establishment of a Philippine Dryland
Research Institute (PhilDRI).
The
conference also aims to develop a national dry-land
agriculture research, development and extension (RD&E)
agenda.
The two
agencies noted that Philippine agriculture, being
predominantly rain-fed, covers three-fourths of the
10-million hectare total cultivated area in the country.
The dry lands (upland and rain-fed areas) are inhabited by
almost 20 million people in
Northern Luzon, Central Visayas and
Southern Mindanao, most of whom are very poor.
They added
that in the last three decades, the bulk of agricultural
RD&E investments, policy support and infrastructure
development has been devoted to favorable and irrigated
lowland areas. Thus, the impact of the Green Revolution
was felt mostly in these areas, bypassing the poor people
of the dry lands. Yet, dry-land agriculture contributes
about 40 percent of the total food production in the
Philippines.
“For the
country to attain food security and substantially reduce
poverty, a robust dryland agricultural RD&E program must
be mapped out and vigorously implemented to spur equitable
and sustainable growth of the agriculture sector,” DA and
Icrisat said.
They said
the national dry-land agriculture RD&E conference aims to
gather the needed momentum to accelerate the development
of dry-land agriculture, spearheaded by PhilDRI.
They
stressed that establishing PhilDRI will be the country’s
“proactive defense against the vagaries of drought and
climate change.”
And by
mobilizing science and technology, PhilDRI will
substantially contribute to poverty alleviation and social
empowerment to improve the livelihoods of poor communities
in the dry lands, they added.
Meanwhile,
Dr. Kiran Sharma, Icrisat’s principal scientist on cell
biology, is set to speak at a public seminar on genetic
engineering on 2 p.m. April 25 at the Philippine Council
for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources, Research
and Development (Pcarrd) headquarters in Los Baños,
Laguna.
With the
theme “Transgenics technology: Scope, potentials and
concern,” the seminar is organized by Icrisat and Pcarrd-Department
of Science and Technology. (Icrisat/PSciJourn News
Service) | 
