RCPC 6 forms pest monitoring brigades
The Regional Crop Protection Center of the Department of Agriculture 6 is urging rice farmers to be vigilant and intensify their pest and diseases monitoring activities, a DA 6 press release said.
The RCPC 6 has formed the Bantay Peste Volunteer Brigade to prevent rice pest outbreaks with the onset of the wet cropping season.
BPVB is a community-based pest monitoring and management team that task farmers themselves to become pest and diseases scouts in the fields.
The team will also make decisions on how to manage pest and diseases affecting their production cluster areas.
Members of the brigade comprise rice cluster farmers who have undergone training on integrated pest management farmers field school and hands-on training on pests monitoring and disease identification.
RCPC has already organized six BPVB teams in the municipalities of Barotac Nuevo, Dingle and Sta. Barbara in Iloilo; Barbaza and Culasi in Antique; Ibajay, Numancia and Kalibo in Aklan.
These groups constantly update the data on pest surveillance through the established communication network.
