Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Forestry

PGC’s Agriculture, Livestock & Fisheries Program is at the forefront of researches towards the genetic improvement of plant varieties and animal breeds using molecular marker-assisted selection and breeding. Ultimately, the program aims to produce improved varieties of crops indigenous to the Philippines such as abaca, Saba banana, pili, and coconut.

Initial projects of the program focus on high throughput discovery and development of gene and molecular markers for important agronomic characteristics such as disease resistance, delayed ripening, and early detection of sex, for use in the genetic improvement of the priority crops such as abaca, Saba banana, pili and coconut.

Other focus areas are development of diagnostic kits with high precision and specificity in identifying disease and genetic diversity of livestock, crops, forest trees, fish and food. The tools of genomics will also be used for microbial testing, discovery of antimicrobials and enzymes for agro-industrial uses, vaccine development and improvement of animal feeds. The program also deals on microbial metagenomics such as microbial communities of animal rumen and mangrove ecosystem. It would also contribute in the development and advancement of bioinformatics for genomic analysis in the Philippines.

Agri Projects