DILIMAN, Quezon City—The Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) continue to recognize top performers in the corn and cassava industries through the annual National Quality Corn Achievers Award (NQCAA), Cassava Cluster Management Excellence Awards (CCMEA), and Cornucopia.

As a result of the assessment of last year’s activities including the desk evaluation, field validation, and awarding ceremony, revisions in the Search’s guidelines were recently released to the regional search committee of the NQCAA and CCMEA.

Corn Program coordinators from DA and ATI regional offices in the Luzon cluster were first to sit down for a zonal briefing on said revised nationwide guidelines.

Edralina Serrano, NQCAA Chairman, led the discussion on the updates and revised guidelines of the NQCAA, CCMEA, and Cornucopia. This include a presentation of the template of project proposals from local government units (LGU), and cluster and farmer organizations for the NQCAA. She, likewise, discussed the Philippine National Standards on Corn Grains.

The regional search committee is expected to immediately disseminate the said updates and revisions on the guidelines to LGUs and cluster and farmer organizations in their respective localities.

The Luzon cluster briefing was held last April 10-12 at the ATI Rural Development and Education Center. The briefings for Visayas and Mindanao coordinators is scheduled on separate dates from April 22 to 26.