The Department of Agriculture (DA) has opened crop pest management facilities in Lipa City, Batangas to help the regional field office (RFO) prevent and control pest infestation in Calabarzon.
The agency said the facilities, which cost P33.1 million, were financed by the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act or the Bayanihan 2.
DA officials led by Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar inaugurated the facilities at the Lipa Agricultural Research and Experiment Station (LARES) Compound in Marawoy, Lipa City, Batangas last July 8.
The new facilities are Region 4A RFO’s upgraded Regional Crop Pest Management Center (RCPM) building, Plant Tissue Culture Laboratory, and Research and Development Training Dormitory, according to the DA.
“This is what the department is doing to modernize our facilities so that the research conducted here in Lipa will bear fruit, which will benefit the whole Region 4A,” Dar said.
He said the upgraded RCPM “can now strengthen monitoring, surveillance, control, and management activities to prevent grave pest infestation in the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, Batangas, and Quezon.” The government spent P14.475 million to upgrade the RCPM.
“The facilities are intended to provide plant pest diagnosis, plant pest field validation, pest management consultation, biological control agent production and quality assurance, as well as training on village-level production of bio-control agents and crops pest management,” the DA said.
The DA said the P6-million training dormitory will serve as a “learning environment for farmers, agricultural extension workers, researchers, academicians, students, and other stakeholders.”
“The Plant Tissue Culture Laboratory worth P12.63 million, on the other hand, is expected to enhance all year-round production of disease-free, affordable, and generic quality planting materials of tissue-cultured banana, coffee, macapuno, citrus, yam, and other high-value crops through in-vitro propagation,” the DA added.