“Regenerative Agriculture (RA) is an approach, a paradigm in considering all these things relevant to sustainable development goals and the impacts of climate change… Resilience is much higher than sustainability.”
This was among the highlights of William D. Dar, Go Negosyo’s senior adviser and Department of Agriculture’s former secretary, as he served as the first resource speaker of the relaunched seminar series of the DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) on 25 January 2024 held both virtually and at the Escaño Hall, RDMIC Bldg., Diliman, Quezon City.
With its first topic, titled Regenerative Agriculture (RA): Feeding and Sustaining the World, Dar outlined the environmental effects of agriculture; main pillars, applicable technologies, and current efforts and initiatives of global partners and the Philippine government toward promoting RA. The RA’s applicable technologies include balanced fertilization, efficient irrigation, integrated pest management, precision farming, and molecular breeding.
Dar furthered on the RA’s facet on dealing with climate resiliency, most particularly in attaining a sustainable world food system. “The new agriculture is also anchored on the sustainable development goals,” Dar said.
As part of the presentation, several economic benefits of RA which include: enhanced resilience to drought and floods resulting to increased stable crop yields; reduced farmers’ dependence on costly farm inputs; improved soil fertility and crop health contributing to sustainable and increased crop yields; and promotion of economic value of food through production of healthy and nutritious products were highlighted.
“Push R&D technological advancements and innovations to utilize or upscale regenerative agriculture,” Dar said as he urged the bureau and other stakeholders in the Research for Development in putting up an RA R4D program.
The then DA-BAR seminar series was renamed to WD Dar Seminar Series in recognition of the valuable contributions of the bureau’s founding director, Dar. This was participated by the bureau’s technical staff and online viewers via streamyard and bureau’s official facebook page.