PCARRD In Philippine Initiatives
For Global Competitiveness

The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) was the first such sectoral council in the Philippines; it was so successful in research management that it was emulated in other countries of Asia. This pioneer did the Filipinos proud. There are times when the Filipino is very, very good.

Born in 1972, PCARRD was one of the early bright stars in President Ferdinand E Marcos’ firmament of Martial Law; Marcos, an Ilocano, was as scholarly as you could get the President of your country to be. He gave full support to PCARRD – he signed the Presidential Decree creating it. The Council had full support of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, National Science Development Board, Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources; with a Ford Foundation grant of about $108,000, PCARRD began her evaluation work of on-going research projects throughout the country. The next time around, the Council reported that she had saved the Philippine Government P18.7M in 1973, as reported by Fernando Bernardo in his newly published book, UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements (2007, Los Baños: UPLB Alumni Association, 249 pages). ‘The Budget Commission was so impressed that it allocated P5M for the construction of (the Council’s) headquarters at the Los Baños Economic Garden.’ We would have to give Joseph Madamba credit for that, being the founding Executive Director. It doesn’t surprise me – it takes one to know one; he is of Ilocano stock, you know, the miserly kind?

From that of simple savings to that of global competitiveness, PCARRD has made the paradigm shift, with results of publicly funded research first providing science information & technology services to Filipino farmers only, and today also to entrepreneurs, if they be the farmers themselves. Today, Friday, November 9, PCARRD celebrates her 35 years of service to the country at the Intercontinental Manila in the City of Makati with the theme ‘Strategic alliances and focused S&T for competitive AFNR products and services.’ Concentrated science & technology to churn out global market-driven products in agriculture, forestry and natural resources. A giant growing for 35 years is fully aware of what she can do, and must.

I am reading the electronic PCARRD Annual Report 2006 – 40 MB, downloaded from pcarrd.dost.gov.ph – with the subtitle Scaling up the impact of science & technology for agricultural growth, and I give you this as my own short list of the Council’s accomplishments:

1. Setting the science agenda for 2006-2010 – 1 agenda, 97 products and services to be generated. A common agenda for a common vision.

2. Keeping tab on investments in science – 10 new projects packaged, then funded, including poverty reduction and food security, biotechnology, natural resource management. Initiatives include resource generation.

3. New knowledge and improved technologies – includes delayed ripening of mango & papaya, products from native chickens, tissue culture of mango, and quality timber and shoots from bamboo. Specifically, a protocol on controlled atmosphere for ‘Carabao’ mango has been found to give an additional 1 month of shelf life with only 2% disease infection. So: We are now exporting Filipino technology along with our mangoes to faraway US, Europe and Middle East markets.

4. Collective actions and program approach to technology promotion – includes e-learning, SMS or texting science Q&A by mobile phone, S&T farms, business alerts.

5. Maximizing information networks – includes fact sheets and profitability analyses to attract funds for science intervention projects among local and international partners.

My attention has been caught by what is referred to as the MS farm and the S&T farm, a PCARRD innovation. MS means Magsasaka Siyentista, Farmer Scientist, that is, a farmer becomes an active partner (technology adopter) in a farm set up by scientists along the supply chain of production, processing and marketing: the growing, processing and marketing become a common endeavor of the enterprise. Since it is a model farm driven by technology, I shall to refer to it as the PCARRD Model T Farm. For example, there are 2 Model T farms planned for Ilocos Norte and La Union in Northern Luzon to grow organic vegetables. Remember the Model T Ford? This was the one that made the automobile popular; I am predicting that the Model T Farm will make the aggie-based enterprise fashionable.

Now then, my congratulations to Executive Director Patricio S Faylon and PCARRD on her 35th year! You have found your appropriate demand-driven role in science for pushing Philippine agriculture onward.

Be that as it may, I believe the Philippines can benefit even more with PCARRD as the lead agency in an Open Knowledge (OK) Initiative between the United States and the Philippines similar to the US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative (AKI) that comprises a package of collaboration in Agricultural Education, Teaching, Research, Service and Commercial Linkages. We are told that to jumpstart the Initiative with India, the United States secured a $8M funding for 2006, with $24M pledged to 2008 (fas.usda.gov). The Philippines too needs all the help she can get.

Look at these activities that have been carried out in 4 key areas in pursuit of the US-India AKI (fas.usda.gov):

Food processing and marketing. 12 Indians have been selected to participate in the USDA’s Cochran Fellowship Program.

Biotechnology. Indians participated in an international workshop on improving legumes through genomics at the University of California Davis, following which the University and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute agreed to collaborate on a pigeon pea genome project.

Water management. The National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges awarded 4 grants to US universities to work with Indian partners on water management.

University capacity building. 15 Indian scientists completed fellowships under the USDA’s Norman E Borlaug International Agricultural Science & Technology Fellows Program.

And that’s just for starters.

If not the US, why not Europe? The European Union (EU) has her own ‘regions of knowledge’ initiative that aim to enhance the growth of regions by advocating the development of ‘regional research-driven clusters’ by associating the universities, research centers, enterprises and regional authorities (eubusiness.com).

I believe we already have similar regional science-driven clusters in the form of the 14 PCARRD consortia. To enhance regional performance, I think PCARRD should seek assistance from the EU similar to the US-India arrangement.

Whether such assistance is of US or European in origin, I’m thinking of these as elements of the OK Initiative:

(1) Research for Development (R4D). More emphasis on applied research; to be acceptable, basic research must have a clear place in the continuum of an applied research project.

(2) Media for Development (M4D). I’m thinking of 4 development roles of media (print, radio, TV, video, Internet, podcast): Advocate of sustainable practices, Informant of new technologies, Decision Support for target technology adopters, and Affirmer by testimony of successful adopters. (By the way, the PCARRD annual report was well written and edited; my congratulations to Ruel Pagcaliwagan. This is a good example of intelligent media.)

(3) Farmer-Driven Databank. PCARRD can learn from the successful Virtual Academy for the Semi-Arid Tropics (VASAT) of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). (And science-based institutions in the Philippines can learn from the team approach of ICRISAT when it comes to research management; ask Team Captain William Dar, an Ilocano himself, also once head of PCARRD.) The Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture can be improved by being demand-driven, not supply-pushed – I have already written about my own idea of smart databanking I call ‘iKNOW!dolt’ (frankahilario.wordpress.com).

(4) University of the Philippines Los Baños (UP Los Baños). If it becomes autonomous and fully independent of the University of the Philippines (UP) System, it can transform itself into the State University of the Philippines and become the center of excellence in renewable resources that Senator Migz Zubiri had challenged it to be on the eve of Loyalty Day 2007, at the Alumni Fellowship & Awards Night of UP Los Baños – I was there and I took notes. I had written about that (americanchronicle.com). He had come with his wife, Audrey Tan.

(5) University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU). The UPOU should relax its academic requirements for entrance and offer entrepreneurial courses among other things. Entrepreneurship is an intelligent alternative for a degree-oriented college education. An entrepreneur can then go ahead and create jobs for himself and others.

(6) Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). With her very rich natural resources, the Philippines can and should develop her own bio-products and bio-processes for industrial purposes.

(7) Public-private partnership. A ‘key feature’ of the US-India AKI, Dinesh Sharma reports, is ‘public-private partnership,’ that is, industry and business helping ‘commercialize new technologies, reshape curricula to suit today’s needs and identify necessary research areas’ (usembassy.state.gov). The Philippines can do no less.

I repeat: I expect the initiative if not the leadership to power up Philippine agriculture to First World level to come from PCARRD. Expectation is one thing, ability is another.

Can the Council do it? I know it can. The question is PCARRD’s political will:
Will it will it?

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