Dryland aggie institute planned

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna – A plan to establish a Philippine Dryland Agriculture Institute (PhilDRI) has been charted.

The proposed institute will be among the topics to be discussed at the National Dryland Agriculture RD&E Conference to be held at the Oriental Hotel at the Clark Freeport in Pampanga on April 17-18.

The two-day forum will be hosted by the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR) headed by Director Nicomedes Eleazar and the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) led by Dr. William Dar, former agriculture secretary.

Some 100 scientists and researchers and experts from DA and its attached agencies and bureaus, state colleges and universities, governors of provinces with dryland conditions, and the ICRISAT will attend the conference.

With “Energizing research, development, and extension for sustainable dryland agriculture in the Philippines” as theme, the forum will assess the present situation of dryland agriculture in the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia.

From the assessment, the groundwork for the establishment of PhilDRI and the development of a national dryland agriculture RD&E will be prepared.

The Philippines has about three million hectares of dryland scattered in Northern Luzon, Central Visayas, and Southern Mindanao. These areas are inhabited by about five million households, most of which suffer from extreme poverty.

“The occurrence of recurrent droughts and environmental degradation owing to climate change can aggravate the conditions of these poor communities, taking into account the extreme drought experienced in the Ilocos region in 2007,” the conference sponsors said.

Dryland agriculture contributes about 40 percent of the country’s total food production. However, the bulk of R&D efforts has been focused only on favorable and irrigated lowland areas.

Once set up, the PhilDRI will serve as the country’s prime mover against the adverse effects of droughts and climate change.

The institute will also substantially contribute to poverty alleviation by mobilizing science and technology to improve the livelihood of poor dryland communities.