Former DA officials Lorenzo and Delima visit Agri NorMin’s soils lab which offers services such as soil and fertilizer tests, plant tissue analysis, among others.

 

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Former agriculture officials paid a visit to the Regional Soils Laboratory (RSL), Integrated Laboratories Division of the Department of Agriculture – Regional Field Office 10 (DA-10) at Antonio Luna Street, this city, to see the agency’s facilities and services.

Welcoming the ex-DA chief Luis Lorenzo, Jr. and Dante S. Delima, former DA undersecretary, is RSL chief Engr. Elena C. Susaya. Engr. Susaya highlighted that the lab offers free-of-charge services for those farmers listed under the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture, who have two hectares and below of the farm area.

DA-10 lab services include soil and fertilizer tests, plant tissue analysis, among others.

Both former agri officials are now engaged in farming and expressed how the extension of lab services would be beneficial, especially in aiding marginalized farmers.

Lorenzo cited that the department’s services can help cushion the plight of farmers, who have been indirectly affected by the Russia-Ukraine dispute.

Delima said that with the delivery of timely and accurate results from the soils lab, unnecessary farmer expenses can be reduced; which would contribute to increased farmers’ income.

Reportedly, the soils lab receives and tests an average of 140 soil samples a week using the Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) technique, major and minor compositions of soils are identified.

Along with the Feed Chemical Analytical Laboratory, RSL of DA-10 acquired Certificate of Authority to Operate (CATO), through the Professional Regulatory Board of Chemistry pursuant to the Chemistry Profession Act, a law regulating and modernizing the practice of chemistry in the Philippines, the first-ever DA regional field office to do so for two of its laboratories.# (EMB)