DA creates management system to control rice-damaging pest

By Rjay Zuriaga Castor 

The Department of Agriculture (DA) has developed a climate-smart pest management system for rice to safeguard agricultural yield and prevent significant losses in the farming community.

DA regional offices, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), and DA’s National Rice Program, created the system during a two-day inception workshop in Iloilo City.

The key agencies collaborated to devise plans and approaches for crop health monitoring, pathogen population analysis, biological control agents, and sustainability.

To identify the most efficient pest control methods, the system will be pilot tested in three areas before it will be shared and applied in other regions.

The DA and partners plan to adopt a climate-smart pest management system in the three pilot areas to generate key results on the most effective pest control approaches that will be disseminated in other regions.

Dr. Lilia Portales, supervising agriculturist at BPI, said that climate change has caused a global shift in temperature, precipitation, and weather patterns, which in turn have been linked to the distribution and intensity of crop pests.

“There is a need to come up with an immediate and effective action plan to keep up with the challenges in crop pests’ management,” she added.

Pollentes furthered that the workshop aims to identify and address the research and operational gaps in rice pest management.

She highlighted that the system will be implemented at the regional level, benefiting farmers in the next five years.

Dr. Nancy Castilla, a senior associate scientist of IRRI, explained that the system they developed aims to reduce crop losses caused by pests, lower greenhouse gas emissions, enhance ecosystem services, and ensure the resilience of rice farmers in both environmental and economic aspects.

Based on historical data, the DA noted that pests and diseases, such as rodents, rice black bug, brown plant hopper, rice stem borer, and bacterial leaf blight, are likely to infest during the first quarter of the year.

Meanwhile, a study by IRRI revealed that farmers lose an estimated average of 5-10 percent of their rice crop each year due to rat damage.

PhilRice also reported that pest infestations could lead to a reduction of rice harvests by 15 to 23 percent when the insect population reaches a ratio of 10 bugs for each hill of rice plants.