At least 25 personnel of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Agrarian Reform participated in the Training on Data Management, Mapping, and Weather Data Correlation of the Pest and Disease Incidence on Agricultural Commodities Using a Geographic Information System (GIS).
Science Research Specialist II, Ms. Maricar Arbilo-Soberano, and Mr. Mark Andrey S. Palicpic, Project Assistant III of DA- CALABARZON, facilitated the activity from June 18 to 21 at Davao City.
Minister Mohammad S. Yacob, Ph.D., thanked the national government for supporting the BARMM during the transition period by giving more opportunities for the MAFAR to improve service to the Bangsamoro People.
He said this training is important to strengthen the ministry’s regulatory services and protect the farmers’ farming activities since the people are highly dependent on agriculture as their source of income.
The training will provide an introduction to basic data management (including data cleaning and weather data processing), basic GIS with Quantum GIS (QGIS) (including a workshop on geoprocessing, vector and raster data, creating maps, and importing CSV files), strengthen monitoring and management systems for insect pests and diseases of agricultural commodities, and an understanding of pest and disease status based on GIS data.
Director II for Regulatory and Quarantine Services Jamir Guimba is grateful for the resource person to share their knowledge and expertise with the Bangsamoro Government.
He said that this training would surely benefit the personnel and strengthen the monitoring, surveillance, and management system of the pests and diseases in the region.
From this training, this tool will be a reference to guide our Bangsamoro farmers for the possible occurrence of the pest in the future, he said.
Also, Dr. Raheima Amilil Amba-Maguindra said we have gained a lot of knowledge through this training. With this, we need to help each other during monitoring and field activities for the farmers.