DOST-PCAARRD
Definition
DOST-PCAARRD, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development, is one of the sectoral planning councils of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). Headquartered in Los Baños, Laguna, it formulates policies, plans, and programs for science and technology in agriculture, forestry, aquatic, and natural resources, and funds research through a nationwide network of universities and agencies known as the National Agriculture, Aquatic, and Natural Resources Research and Development System (NARRDS).
Identities (Wikipedia/Wikidata/DBpedia)
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Council_for_Agriculture,_Aquatic,_and_Natural_Resources_Research_and_Development
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7185026
- DBpedia: N/A
Also Known As
Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development; PCAARRD (its predecessor acronyms PCARRD and PCAMRD refer to the two councils merged into it).
Examples and Analogy
PCAARRD works like a national research matchmaker and bank rolled into one: it does not do the experiments itself but decides which commodity problems—say, cacao pests or tilapia feeds—deserve funding, connects farmers to the resulting technologies, and pushes promising results through demonstration farms until they are ready for the market.
Usage Scenarios
The council’s outputs appear in programs such as the Industry Strategic S&T Plans for commodities like cassava, coffee, and coconut, Farmer Field Schools and science-and-technology-based farms that showcase technologies, and scholarships for agriculture and aquaculture researchers. Local government units and state universities partner with it to put up technology demonstration sites and agri-aqua business incubation hubs.
Strategies
Strategies include planning by commodity value chains, funding consortia that link research institutions with farmers’ groups and private firms, and using its Technology Transfer and Promotion program to commercialize research results. It also operates information services, including the Philippine e-Journals and agriculture hotlines, to push S&T knowledge down to farm level.
Security and Safety Measures
As a granting institution, PCAARRD enforces procurement, auditing, and intellectual-property rules on the projects it funds, requires proper biosafety and ethical clearances for research involving organisms, animals, or human subjects, and safeguards research data and germplasm records in line with government information-security standards.
Historical Context
The council was created in 2011 by merging the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD, created 1972) with the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development (PCAMRD, created 1988), uniting land- and water-based R&D under one body in response to the reorganization of the agriculture R&D landscape.
Challenges and Controversies
The council continually wrestles with the gap between published research and actual farm adoption, the fragmentation of the national R&D budget across many agencies, and the difficulty of retaining agricultural scientists. Debates also arise over how much funding should go to staple crops versus high-value commodities and how quickly technologies such as biotech products should be promoted.
Related Topic
Department of Science and Technology