RP-China accord to perk up sugarcane R&D

Expect the country’s technological advances in sugarcane R&D to be further boosted in the immediate future.

This bright outlook can be buttressed by a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed recently between the Philippine Sugar Research Institute Foundation, Inc. (PHILSURIN) and the Yunnan Sugarcane Research Institute (YSRI) in Kaiyuan City, Yunnan province.

MOA signatories were PHILSURIN chairman Jose Manuel Lopa and YSRI director Fan Yuanhong. Fan lead a Chinese team that visited the country recently.

The agreement binds the two entities to, among other things, exchange breeding materials in an effort to produce new sugarcane varieties.

PHILSURIN, currently headed by Director General Leon Arceo, is a nonstock, nonprofit foundation created in 1995 through the initiative of the National Council of Sugar Producers to undertake sugarcane research, development, and extension (RDE) functions.

PHILSURIN and YSRI will select up to five commercial varieties and five clones for advanced stages of selection per year for the purpose of varietal exchange.

PHILSURIN agreed that YSRI varieties obtained from the Chinese institute will be maintained and kept under PHILSURIN’s jurisdiction. YSRI also concurred that all VMC and PRN varieties obtained from PHILSURIN will be maintained and kept under YSRI’s jurisdiction.

Sugarcane varieties introduced from either party will be available for use in their breeding program and for yield tests in the field.

With the country’s sugar industry now headed for much better times, the PHILSURIN-YSRI collaboration is expected to further boost this important sector of the national economy. – Rudy A. Fernandez