The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) and the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for collaborative effort to address agricultural drought in the Philippines on 16 December 2024 at the PhilSA Office in Quezon City.
This agreement aims to create crop-specific drought maps from satellite data, with a focus on rice. PhilSA will leverage rice maps and field data from the DA-PhilRice to generate rice-specific drought maps, which will provide valuable insights for agricultural planning and resilience.
The signing of this agreement formalizes secure and efficient data sharing between the two agencies for enhanced drought mitigation.
In her opening remarks, PhilSA Deputy Director General for Space Science and Technology Dr. Gay Jane P. Perez expressed how this is a momentous step in the use of space data for addressing agricultural drought concerns—an endeavor that has been in development for over a decade, starting with the Drought and Crop Assessment and Forecasting (DCAF) project co-implemented by the University of the Philippines Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology (UP IESM), Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), and Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Soils and Water Management (DA-BSWM), and now being operationalized through PhilSA. “We are celebrating partnership. This collaboration with PhilRice underpins the importance of integrating satellite and ground data, emphasizing how ground data is used to validate, calibrate, and enhance the accuracy of satellite-derived insights and models,” Dr. Perez said.
The OIC of the PhilRice Office of the Deputy Director for Research and Philippine Rice Information System (PRiSM) Project Leader, Dr. Eduardo Jimmy Quilang, stated the importance of this partnership with PhilSA for the agricultural sector’s benefit. “We cannot realize our goals, our dreams, our mission, our vision alone. Our research for development is heavily partnership-based. That’s why right now we are more than happy to sign our memorandum of agreement—sharing what we have and complementing what you are doing,” Dr. Quilang said.
The MOA was signed by PhilRice Executive Director Dr. John De Leon and PhilSA Deputy Director General Denis Villorente (representing PhilSA Director General Joel Joseph S. Marciano Jr.). Deputy Director General Gay Jane Perez and Director Ariel C. Blanco served as witnesses for PhilSA, while Deputy Director Quilang and PRiSM Assistant Unit Head Mary Rose Mabalay (representing PRiSM Unit Head Jovino De Dios) served as witnesses for PhilRice.
This agreement provides a platform to maximize the impact of PhilSA’s Satellite Mission Analysis, Planning, Product Enhancement and Development (SatMAPPED) project, which aims to monitor, predict, and mitigate drought impacts on agriculture through space-based technologies. It also signifies further enhancement of the country’s resilience to the impacts of drought on agriculture.
