Farmers Must Control Rice Pest & Disease

Bantay Peste Volunteer Brigade. Rene B. Famoso of DA 6 – Regional Crop Protection Center shows to farmers the proper way to monitor and collect pests and diseases on ricefield during the conduct of BPVB training at barangay Capoyuan, Barbaza, Antique recently. Sixty farmers participated in the two-day training and on-farm workshop which aimed to familiarize harmful and friendly insects and identify diseases symptoms among rice plants. (Photo: James Earl E. Ogatis/RAFID 6)

The Regional Crop Protection Center (RCPC) 6 urges farmers to be vigilant and intensify their pests and diseases monitoring activities in their respective rice cluster areas.

With the onset of the wet cropping season RCPC 6 formed the Bantay Peste Volunteer Brigade (BPVB) to prevent any rice pests outbreak.

BPVB is a community-based pest monitoring and management team wherein farmers themselves are the pests and diseases scouts in the fields.

The team will also make decisions on how to manage pests and diseases affecting their production cluster areas.

Members of the brigade comprise rice cluster farmers who have undergone training on integrated pests management farmers field school (IPM-FFS) and hands-on training on pests monitoring and diseases identification.

To date, RCPC has organized six (6) BPVB teams situated 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 data on pest surveillance through the established communication network. (JEEO/RAFID 6) /MP