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Archives
Aug 1-31, 2003
Medrano keynotes HARRDEC
RDE symposium
by Rita T. dela
Cruz
Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR)
Director William C. Medrano was the keynote speaker
during the Regional RDE Symposium and Farmer's Forum
of the Highland Agriculture and Resources Research and
Development Consortium (HARRDEC), La Trinidad, Benguet,
13-14 August 2003.
An annual activity of HARRDEC, the symposium
focuses on the presentation of technologies and information
for dissemination identified during the in-house reviews
of the consortium-member agencies. It serves as a venue
to disseminate research breakthroughs and significant
findings as well as evaluate potential technologies.
According to Director Medrano, RDE has
a lot to do in developing a market-oriented economy
as it elevates the level of agricultural competency
in the country. To be able to face the various challenges
of this fast changing times, we need more technologies
to transform the farm into a sustainable and highly
profitable enterprise, he emphasized.
He stressed that R&D has a crucial
role to play in achieving a technology-based industry
that can address the key issues of food security, global
competitiveness, productivity and income, and poverty
eradication and people empowerment.
He posed three challenges to the participants.
First, is to bring technologies to the ultimate users.
He emphasized the need to strengthen the research-extension
linkage by enlisting the cooperation of LGU partners
to move cutting-edge technologies to the countryside.
There is a need to make these technologies available
to the clients so that they could benefit from them.
He mentioned that in the final analysis, the success
of any technology is measured by the number of people
whose lives have improved because of it.
Second, he challenged the participants
to make good use of the results of this symposium by
initiating better measures to ensure the dynamic and
timely delivery of R&D results. There is a need
to improve the system and make it more efficient in
supporting farmers and fisherfolk.
Finally, he stressed the need to do more
applied research where results can be adopted by the
farmers easily. A technology that requires a lot of
skills and inputs from the user is not always a good
technology, he said. He encouraged the researchers to
stop doing research for research sake and waste resources
in the end. He cited that what is need are simple, cost-effective
and sustainable technologies that could make farmers
globally competitive. He mentioned that BAR is initiating
some reforms to re-orient its national R&D policies.
On top of its list of reforms is prioritizing
strategic and applied research. These are researches
should be strongly market-oriented, innovation-driven,
and farmer-oriented. These are the two types of research
that Director Medrano firmly believes could create direct
impact on the farmers' and fisherfolk's productivity
and income.
Another strategy he mentioned is networking
with regional assessment institutes and other research
organizations and good partnership with provincial extension
centers, non-government organizations (NGOs) and key
stakeholders to provide timely delivery and dissemination
of newly generated technologies to the clients.
Participants during the symposium included
technology generators, researchers, communicators, extension
workers, policy makers, entrepreneurs, farmers, and
representatives from the private sector and NGOs. 
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