FOR agricultural countries, it is vital for farmers to use quality seeds in order to attain abundant and sustainable production.
But with the challenges posed by climate change, seeds need to be climate-resilient as well.
The development and availability of these quality seeds can be fast-tracked through the collaboration of different countries in the Southeast and South Asian regions.
This collaboration will be discussed during the forthcoming webinar dubbed “Regional Cooperation for Building a Resilient Seed System in the Philippines” that will be organized by the International Potato Center (CIP) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, and co-organized by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PCAARRD).
The webinar will be held on Oct. 7 from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. via Zoom and Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/cipotato.
The Philippines, when it decides to become part of the regional cooperation, will benefit from this setup through acquiring field trial data of public sector varieties and information on varietal evaluation data from other Southeast and South Asian countries.
The farmers will then benefit from the faster release of new climate-smart plant varieties.
This cooperation has already been conducted in other countries, which include India and Bangladesh in 2013, and was later extended to include Nepal in 2014.
The three countries shared data from their respective field trials that were generated during the evaluation of different varieties released in their respective countries.
The agreement eventually included Cambodia and Sri Lanka, which likewise included other cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, sugarcane, and fiber crops.
The countries of Myanmar and Bhutan eventually joined the cooperation.
India, which participated in the regional cooperation, released a bio-fortified potato variety, Yusi Maap within months, compared with Bhutan, which only released the variety after 15 years.
Topics of the webinar will specifically focus on the challenges faced by the seed sector brought about by climate change; expected impacts of the Philippines when it joins the regional cooperation in the seed sector; and the potential challenges for joining the regional cooperation.
Panelists coming from Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the Philippines are expected to share their experiences and insights on joining the regional cooperation in the seed sector.
The webinar will be moderated and hosted by Dr. Sampriti Baruah, the CIP project coordinator for Asia.
According to the DOST-PCAARRD, interested participants can register at http://bit.ly/Oct7reg.
Meanwhile, DOST-PCAARRD Executive Director Dr. Reynaldo V. Ebora was recently appointed as a member of the Policy Advisory Council (PAC) of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
ACIAR PAC plays a key role in the planning and implementation of ACIAR’s international agricultural research portfolio.
It provides advice to Australia’s Foreign Minister on problems in the agriculture sector of developing countries and on the appropriate policies and programs to address the problems.
PCAARRD and ACIAR have been strong partners for more than 36 years in terms of agricultural R&D and in promoting R&D results to advance agricultural competitiveness./PN
