Gov’t move vs coco pest 5 years delayed

FORMER Sen. and now Presidential Adviser on Food Security and Agricultural Modernization Francis Pangilinan during his first press briefing as a member of the Cabinet.  GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

LUCENA CITY—An official of the scientists’ group Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (Agham) on Friday blamed the government for its failure to prevent the outbreak of coconut scale infestation (CSI), or “cocolisap,” that could have been foiled five years ago.

Finesa Cosico, Agham secretary general, said the pest was first detected by the Regional Crop Protection Center of the Department of Agriculture in Barangay Ulango in Tanauan City, Batangas province, in 2009.

“If only the government, led by the PCA (Philippine Coconut Authority), paid serious attention to reports of the initial infestation, we would not be dealing with CSI on such a massive scale right now,” Cosico, an agriculturist and entomologist, said in a statement sent to the Inquirer.

At this point, Cosico said the government should adopt an “integrated pest management” in its war on the pest.

This, she said, “includes all pest control measures, such as the introduction of natural enemies and the application of organic pesticides to ensure effectivity of pest control strategies.”

Coconut farmers stand to lose more if the government continued to offer “paltry solutions,” according to Cosico, who worked with the National Food Authority from 1999 to 2009 before she joined Agham full time.

Cosico said there were colonies of cocolisap in each infected coconut tree, which should be matched with a swarm of predators, or biological control agents, like the coccinellid Cryptognatha nodiceps, or friendly beetle.

She said the PCA released 24,000 coccinellid beetles in 2013 but these were insufficient, as pests started to destroy nearly 500,000 coconut trees in Quezon province alone.

“The PCA does not even have a beetle for every infected coconut tree in Quezon,” Cosico said.

She said cocolisap had the ability to withstand high temperatures of 36 to 37 degrees Celsius, making it all the more difficult to control.

“El Niño can trigger more favorable conditions for CSI breeding,” Cosico said.

She said the best way to end infestation was to deprive a pest of its source of nourishment, which would mean cutting off all coconut trees in affected provinces. But she admitted that this would be an absurd option.

She said coconut farmers were  “left with reactive, stop-gap and almost futile measures proposed by the PCA,” such as leaf pruning, cutting infected trees and the use of organic pesticides and biological control agents.

“Leaf pruning will only be effective if done before an actual outbreak happens. Cutting down infested trees is heartbreaking for coconut farmers who have toiled for at least six years. Pesticides are difficult to apply for very tall plants like coconuts,” Cosico said.

Cosico said farmers should be provided with farm inputs for cultivating alternative crops.

Last week, President Aquino issued Executive Order No. 169 to effectively control, manage and eventually eradicate the pest.

The national government also unveiled a six-month emergency measure to address the CSI infestation and allotted P750 million to contain the pest, affecting

1.2 million trees nationwide.

But for Cosico, EO 169 was nothing but just “papogi propaganda” by Mr. Aquino and Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization Francis Pangilinan to enable them to say the government is doing something.