Newly appointed director of the Korea Project on International Agriculture (KOPIA) Philippines Center, Dr. Won Ha Yang, was at the PCAARRD Headquarters recently.
KOPIA Philippines is a collaboration between South Korea’s Rural Development Administration (RDA) and the Department of Agriculture‘s Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice). It aims to fortify agricultural cooperation with developing nations through technological support and co-development of resources to sustain adoption of technology in the local setting.
Run by RDA and established in the Philippines in 2010, KOPIA Philippines is stationed at the PhilRice Central Experiment Station in Nueva Ecija.
On behalf of PCAARRD Executive Director Patricio S. Faylon, Policy Coordination and Monitoring Division (PCMD) Director Leah J. Buendia welcomed Dr. Won Ha Yang and his companions, Hye Kyung Son and Sohee Jo, two KOPIA Philippines interns.
To orient the new director, Dr. Buendia presented the Council’s history, its Industry Strategic S&T Plans (ISPs), and the PCAARRD-RDA partnership.
Banking on the Council’s ISP on rice, Dr. Yang shared his optimism that PCAARRD and KOPIA Philippines can work together in helping rice farmers in the Philippines through future collaborative activities.
Dr. Buendia also gave a brief background of the Philippine-RDA Alumni Association, an active organization established in 2003, which aims to sustain the linkages between and among fellows and trainees from the PCAARRD-RDA collaboration composed of scientists/researchers/research managers from national agricultural research institutions, organizations, and state universities and colleges, among others.