December 5, 2017

“Pagsasama sama” or unity is the best thing that everyone could get from the 4-year PRISM project experiences – Dr. Eduardo Jimmy Quilang, PRISM’s Project Leader in PhilRice.

In line with its completion as an R&D project by December 2017, the Philippine Rice Information System (PRISM) conducted a National Project Assessment last November 16-17, 2017 at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in Nueva Ecija to assess the overall performance of the project in terms of meeting its objectives and targets. There were 90 participants including PRISM regional focal persons from the Department of Agriculture’s Regional Field Offices (DA-RFOs) , PRISM Project Team from PhilRice and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI ), and invited external reviewers .

“We believe that your (Focal persons’) experiences in the field would help us improve PRISM’s operation as we transition from development to operational phase,” added by Dr. Quilang.

He also emphasized the importance of inviting the external reviewers to see how PRISM works from different lens. The results of the activity will contribute in the full assessment of the products and system that we developed in this project.

PRISM has been developed since 2014 to generate and provide seasonal rice information to the DA and support its planning, operations and policies towards increased rice production in the country. PRISM is a collaborative project funded by the DA National Rice Program through the DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research.

“We need to look back, assess our experiences and learn from each other how to improve PRISM so we can provide better support to the DA,” said. Dr. Alice Laborte, PRISM’s Project Leader in IRRI.

Through the help of the partners and the RFOs, PRISM will continuously provide accurate, timely, location-specific and detailed information on the rice crop that includes assessment of damages in the event of flood and drought to achieve rice sufficiency.

Dr. Laborte ended the event by acknowledging and thanking the efforts of everyone who has been giving their best in PRISM, “Wala ang PRISM kung wala kayong lahat (We will not be able to achieve what we have in PRISM without your support),” added by her.

By Janica Gan