MAFAR officers have undergo training on monitoring, surveillance

COTABATO CITY – 31 Regulatory Officers region-wide of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Agrarian Reform on December 5-7 underwent training on pest monitoring, surveillance, and early warnings

The Crop Pest Management Unit of the Research and Regulatory Division, headed by Director II Jamer T. Guimba and OIC-ARRD Chief Raheima Amilil Amba-Mangindra, led the three-day activity at Golden Lace.

This training aims to educate the focal persons/officers on how to set proper advisories, determine and assess crop damage and yield loss in a timely and appropriate control measures in pest management, and they were also taught how to use the Open Data Kit (ODK) application.

Director Jamer T. Guimba, in his welcoming message, “The training is a continuous process regardless of when it was conducted, and we could always use throughout while we render our services as Agriculturist or “tagapag-sugpo ng mga peste sa ating mga pananim.”

He said the presence of the National Office, particularly the Bureau of Plant Industry, not only for the Regulatory but on how they’ve helped in strengthening our program was indeed beneficial for us. 

During the training, the topics presented and discussed are the following: Objective of Monitoring, Strategy and Sampling Techniques; Importance, Major Types, and Basic Component of Pest Surveillance; Steps in Carrying Out Surveillance System; Pest Forecasting and Early Warnings and Monitoring using ODK Application and General Pest Damage and Yield Loss Assessment.

Resource Speakers from the Bureau of Plant Industry, National Office, shared their expertise namely Ms. Russ-Uzzi Mayenne A. Ebora, AG-II/BPI Crop Protection Management Division, and Ms. Genevie T. Ticong, SRS I/BPI CPMD.