Tuesday, July 5, 2016

DA Caraga and LGUs Prepares for Rainy Season



Prevention is better than cure!

An approach embraced by the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office 13 and its counterparts in the local governments in anticipation for possible emergence of pests and diseases on rice amid the incoming rainy season.

In Surigao del Sur, DA and the Provincial Agriculture Office conducted a talakayan with the farmers about rice pests and diseases last June 12-17, 2016.
One of the cluster in Cantilan, SDS with your blogger as facilitator

The talakayan (forum) was conducted in 7 clustered sites attended by almost 500 farmers and agricultural extension workers (AEWs) from 17 municipalities and two component cities, Bislig and Tandag.

Surigao del Sur Provincial Agriculturist Marcos Quico appealed to the AEWs to strengthen pest monitoring in their respective areas.

“I am urging all farmers to enhance the two way communication between farmers and agri-extensionists in order to address promptly in case of pests and diseases emergence,” Quico said.

DA Caraga Field Operations Division Chief (FOD) Rebecca Atega stressed the need that farmers should be resilient nowadays to sustain production amidst weather uncertainty.

“Our farmers need to be vigilant and capacitated on what to do in case of pests’ infestation to ensure food supply for the Filipinos,” she said.

Same activities are on the pipeline to be undertaken in other areas in Caraga for the coming days.

Last cropping season, some municipalities of Surigao del Sur experienced mild infestation of BPH where the situation had been curb earlier with adequate technical knowhow of the affected farmers.


As preventive measures for the current planting season, Surigao del Sur LGUs and DA will distribute metarhizium as an initial application to the farms against harmful insects affecting rice such as BPH and Rice Black Bug.

Metarhizium anisopliae, formerly known as Entomophthora anisopliae (basionym), is a fungus that grows naturally in soils throughout the world and causes disease in various insects by acting as a parasitoid. The fungus then develops inside the body eventually killing the insect after a few days through a disease called green muscardine disease because of the green color of its spores.

Metarhizium anisopliae is one of the biocontrol being developed in RCPC Caraga situated at Trento, Agusan del Sur.  (Aurelius P. Arais/DA Caraga)


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