SCIENCE CITY OF MUNOZ — Department of Agriculture (DA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Central Luzon State University (CLSU) for the implementation of three research and development projects amounting to PhP289.5-million.
The MOA will give rise to a) Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases (CenTrAD), b) Precision and Digital Agriculture Center (PreDiC) and c) Organic Vegetable Production Technologies Using Vertical Farming System.
University President Edgar Orden expressed his sincere gratitude to the unwavering support of DA and its attached agencies with the new project grants and for believing CLSU as it contributes and brings impact to the people it serves.
For his part, Agriculture Secretary William Dar recognized CLSU as one of the top universities in agriculture and in veterinary science and medicine, and challenged the scientists and researchers to generate technologies and also facilitate the application of technologies for the betterment of the agriculture and fisheries sectors.
He further inspired the proponents of the new projects to use these resources to dream higher and aim to develop vaccines that will significantly help manage and defeat the occurrence of animal diseases known today and those in the future.
“If you do your best in terms of the objectives and targets under the memorandum of agreement, then there will be more resources to come,” he added.
He also shared that apart from the three projects, two new projects were also set to be implemented focusing on the establishment of nuclear farms for small ruminants and the seed and seedling production for vegetables and fruits amounting to PhP 10 and PhP 5 million, respectively.
The CenTrAD shall be the lead agency for risk analysis, investigation, diagnosis, mapping, and emergency management of Transboundary Animal Diseases such as African Swine Fever, Newcastle Disease, Avian Flu and those that might emerge in the future.
PreDiC, on the other hand, will address the challenges of increasing the productivity and sustainability of the agriculture sector by generating Precision/SMART platforms through the conduct of research and development focusing on integrating remote data acquisition and wireless and sensor technologies on plant-soil-water-climate relation; aquaculture, livestock and poultry management; invasive species detection and management; natural resources management; and mapping and forecasting.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held right after the MOA signing for these projects.