PCARRD Executive Director (ED) Patricio S. Faylon leads a series of consultations as it prepares its Science and Technology Agenda (STA) for 2011-2016.
The consultations kicked off at the PCARRD Headquarters on September 1-2 with representatives from the Southern Tagalog Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium and National Capital Region as participants.
The second consultation was held at the Philippine Carabao Center in the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija on September 6-7 for the consortia of the Central Luzon, Cordillera, Cagayan Valley, and Ilocos regions.
Recently concluded was the session for the Visayas held in Cebu City. In the offing is the consultation for the consortia of Mindanao to be held in Davao on September 28-29.
In the consultations, Faylon highlighted the activities conducted during the formulation of the previous Corplan (corporate plan) and STA.
The ED also emphasized the experiences, accomplishments, and learnings from the implementation of PCARRD programs based on the previous Corplan and STA. According to him, the Council’s partnership with the regions has been the key ingredient for such significant accomplishments.
Faylon pointed out that the PCARRD-regions partnership is even made more evident in the annual publication of the R&D highlights, introduction of new S&T interventions, delivery of STBF (Science and Technology-based Farm) services resulting to improved productivity, and production of S&T-based products from the regions.
Faylon also noted that the investments of PCARRD and its partner member agencies (PMAs) on their programs have gained the Council more clients and beneficiaries. He said that these investments also improved the capacities of the Council and the PMAs.
The STA shall be the roadmap covering a range of ‘umbrella programs’ (based on 5 thematic areas) designed to make S&T an effective tool to achieve growth in the agriculture, forestry and natural resources sectors. This growth is envisioned under Philippine Agriculture 2020 and built upon PCARRD’s experiences from working with different partner organizations with diverse institutional interests.
The series of regional consultations will provide a venue to brainstorm on how to meet the difficult challenge of ensuring sustainable food security amidst climate change and to meet the country’s food demands as well as promoting resiliency of our natural resources.