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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