PCARRD annual report 2006

The Council worked on its leverage in research and development (R and D) work utilization in 2006. In summary, the Council buttressed its foundation with a realistic and practicable blueprint for development - the science and technology (S and T) agenda and the launching of new initiatives in S and T. In the S and T agenda, however, supporting R and D has gone beyond deciding which products and/or commodities to focus on. It was anchored on the overall goal of the country for economic development. For instance, R and D on mangoes, allowing the transport and marketability of this produce to distant markets, is a product to penetrate new markets. The innovative packaging for banana and development of products from the native chicken were the Council's answer to the lack of better income opportunities among poor rural farmers. In the same way, the organized production of day-old and hardened chicks helped ensure a stable supply of slaughter native chickens of predictable quality. This production system opens the opportunity for the production of value-added convenience food products. The Poles Per Year Technology, a silvicultural and management protocol, assures the sustainable supply of quantity and quality bamboo shoots and poles. And in response to the recent calamities that confronted the nation, the Council was instrumental in guiding the multiagency partnership and client-oriented extension strategies that restored damaged lands and brought back to farmers their sources of food and income. This was particularly evident in the introduced S and T interventions in affected farmlands in Bgy. Boboin in Infanta, Quezon [Philippines]. PCARRD's partnership with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) bore a project funded by the latter on the supply chain improvement for mangoes. The project noted the functionality of supply chain management in pilot testing hot water treatment at the farmer's and traders' levels, and extensive dissemination of technical and market information. The strategically important S and T program on biotechnology, focusing on farm productivity by decreasing postharvest losses in papaya and mango with prolonged fruit shelf life, reviving the papaya industry through a papaya ringspot virus, resistant variety, and identify novel genes from coconut was continuously supported. A broadened reach of clientele was evident in 2006 with the growing number of Farmers' Information and Technology Service centers of the Techno Gabay Program. The Council continues to play a key role in mobilizing high-level support for information, education, and communication (IEC), and in the interplay of knowledge networking across the country through information, communication, and technology (ICT). In Techno Gabay, the K-Agrinet or 'Knowledge Networking Towards Enterprising Agricultural Communities' provided interventions beyond connectivity and training. The second program Enhancing FITS for rural development complemented this. Along with investments on equipment and capability development, the engendered a focused approach to work on a specific product or commodity in the regions. Meanwhile, the S and T-based farms paved the way for the production of goat, organic vegetables, and fresh mangoes, propagation of malapapaya, and processing of woven bamboo products. This modality institutionalizes the partnership among technology generators, extension agents, and the local government units.