Center Renews Partnership with SANREM in Food Security Study in SEA

The North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (NCA&T) and the DLSU Social Development Research Center are again collaborating on a study entitled “Conservation Agriculture for Food Security in Cambodia and the Philippines.” The year-long project, which ends in September 2013, is managed by the Office of International Research, Education and Development (OIRED) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP).

The project seeks to show that conservation agriculture principles (CAPS) and practice of minimal soil disturbance, continuous mulching and diverse species rotations constitute the appropriate “tool box” to create sustainable permanent cropping systems for annual crop production under wet tropical conditions in Cambodia and the Philippines; and that CAPS will reverse soil degradation, increase crop yield and profits and reduce the labor burden on women.

Moreover, the project is being pursued to enhance and promote DLSU’s capacity to contribute to stakeholder empowerment through knowledge-based sustainable agriculture and natural resource management systems.

Former SDRC Director Dr. Ma. Elena Chiong-Javier, a social scientist and gender expert, leads the gender research component in both the Philippines and Cambodia. She is conducting the review of literature on gendered participation in conservation agriculture in both countries, will conduct focus group discussions and/or surveys, and will determine the positive and negative impacts of CAPS on women in male-headed and female-headed households adopting these principles.

Project manager for the SANREM study is Dr. Manuel R. Reyes of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design at NCA&T.