Towards greater agricultural productivity through SIPAG
Assistant Secretary for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Asec. Raymund Liboro; DOST-PCAARRD Acting Executive Director Dr. Reynaldo V. Ebora; friends from the media; STII and PCAARRD staff, good afternoon.
As the term of elected officials draws to a close, it is imperative to look into how they— and all of us public servants under their leadership—have collectively heeded the call of improving people’s lives through our respective capacities and accomplishments.
In our area of science and technology, it has always been foremost in our minds to continue to discover ways of 1) making science work for the people; 2) empower our scientists and engineers as well as our constinuent and beneficiaries—in this case, the farmers and fishermen; and 3) use and deploy all our resources to make our industry and agriculture technologically self-reliant instead of dependent on others, especially foreign technology.
If we recall what the President has said as we buckled up to cope with natural disasters, “Science must be put to work in order to save lives.” Now that we know our own capabilities for dealing with climate change, we must continue to put science to work in order to elevate lives. In order to enhance life’s quality and people’s capabilities.
That is why today, we would like you, our friends from the media, to familiarize yourselves with our strategies for growth—especially in the agriculture and aquatic sectors where about 47% of our countrymen depend for their livelihood.
Knowing the challenges of promoting science and technology, especially as it applies to agriculture and aquatic concerns, PCAARRD adopts the Strategic Industry S&T Program for Agri-Aqua Growth, or SIPAG, as its technology diffusion strategy.
Designed to be more appealing, engaging, and participatory, SIPAG embodies DOST-PCAARRD’s commitment to making science and technology work as a precursor of rural economic growth through the Council’s major program, the Industry Strategic S&T Program or ISP.
The ISP sets the vision and direction of S&T in the agriculture, aquatic and natural resources (AANR) sectors and seeks to influence other players to align their efforts towards a robust agri-aqua-based industry by 2020.
Towards this vision, SIPAG, as the Council’s battlecry towards poverty alleviation and economic empowerment, marries the hard work of the country’s farmhands and innovativeness of its R&D workforce.
Through SIPAG, PCAARRD commits to provide the agri-aqua sectors with science-based know-how and tools that will enable them to raise productivity to world-class standards so that their fruits will be a true blessing for every Juan.
Today, the Department of Science and Technology and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development, together with the Science and Technology Information Institute (STII), present in this gathering of friends, some of our priority technologies in the field of agriculture, aquatic and natural resources sectors.
These technologies have been identified in relation to the prevailing needs in the said sectors, which have to be immediately addressed, if we are to realize the maximum benefits from the agricultural commodities to which they apply.
Five of the Council’s priority technology breakthroughs include: Carrageenan Plant Growth Regulator or CPGR; Smarter Agriculture; Coconut Somatic Embryogenesis or CSet; Shrimp Biofloc Technology; and Swine Genomics.
Each of these technologies is expected to benefit the agri-aqua sectors in terms of increasing efficiency and productivity and in addressing the concerns of a continually degrading and hostile environment brought about by climate change.
Carrageenan extracted from seaweeds and further degraded through irradiation may be the latest technology breakthrough in Philippine agriculture.
The carrageenan plant growth regulator (CPGR) applied at low concentrations in rice has been found to enhance the yield by 15–30% in multi-location trials conducted in Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Laguna, and Iloilo.
Through Smarter Agriculture, farmers and decision makers can now have a decision support system in dealing with the effects of climate change in the agricultural sector using advances in S&T. As of 2015, the program has already produced outputs that can be grouped into five categories: technologies, systems, data products, and networks or linkages.
CSet, on the other hand, is set to mass produce more pest and disease-resistant coconuts of superior quality. The protocol currently attains as much as 627 plantlets per plumule by using explants from high yielding tall and dwarf coconut varieties.
Shrimp biofloc technology uses a microbial mat composed of aggregates of bacteria, algae, protozoa, detritus, and dead organic particles that help control the natural microbial activity in aquaculture ponds. It can reduce shrimp’s reliance on protein from feeds; improve shrimp’s nutrition as it enhances feed conversion ratio, resulting in larger shrimps; and enhance shrimp’s immune system since a well-developed biofloc water can contain more than 2,000 bacterial species.
Lastly, through the project, “Private-public partnership in the application of animal genomics to increase productivity and improve efficiency of the Philippine swine industry,” ten gene marker protocols associated with high litter size, fast growth rate, and meat qualities as well as seven markers for screening of genetic defects and disease resistance were developed. DOST-PCAARRD’s R&D initiative for swine aims to increase pigs produced per sow per year by 4.6 piglets, which is equivalent to an additional 460 kilograms of hog liveweight or a 25―30% increase in pork production without increasing the breeder pig population.
My friends, we at DOST value media’s huge help in disseminating these technologies. Surely, you have always been instrumental in relaying the good news. More importantly, we continue to enrol your assistance in changing mind sets and in creating a culture of science in the larger sectors of society.
This culture of science must not only recognize the value of knowledge and research and their translation into data-based strategies. It must continue to instill in all of us something bigger, which is the belief in ourselves and in our capabilities. That is why from the start we have always said, “Local technology works.” And SIPAG is proof positive of that.
That necessary self-respect, we at DOST would like to believe, complete’s surrounding ecosystem that will help us produce all the breakthroughs in making science and technology work to enable us to respond to our country’s specific and special needs.
Because we believe in our science and technology workers—the engineers, inventors, scientists, among others—we empower them. When we empower them, especially with guided and directed research, they become more capable of generating work and products that is at par with most of the world. And the more we empower them, the better can we engage them in the work of science and technology in building nations and individual lives.
Friends, at DOST we have always looked at our endeavor for building our science nation as analogous to the human brain. Our scientists, engineers, inventors and workers are like the neurons that work and rely mainly on their own. Each of them, in effect, are islands of know-how.
We must must now connect and interconnect these multidiciplinary islands in order to spark a chain reaction. The more neurons are connected and interactive, the higher our National Science IQ, the more chain reactions that will result in further breakthroughs, in overall national progress that will benefit all the people.
That is our dream.
In the meantime, we thank you, our friends from the media, for helping us pursue this dream. And for helping us translate this dream into specific strategies to improve lives especially in the agriculture and aquatic sectors.
Let me therefore invite each one of you to our SIPAG FIESTA on March 2 to 4 at the Council’s headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna.
To highlight the event is the formal opening of the DOST-PCAARRD Innovation and Technology Center (DPITC). The DPTIC will be a venue for technology transfer services for commercializing agri-aqua technologies or products and managing intellectual properties generated from DOST and PCAARRD-funded projects. Moreover, it will house a modern exhibition hub, digital library, conference facility, and a technology business hub.
Mabuhay po ang SIPAG FIESTA, mabuhay po ang siyensiya at teknolohiya sa bansa. At tulong-tulong tayong pataasin ang ating National Science IQ!
Maraming salamat sa inyo.