A FOURTH year BS Agriculture (BSA) student emerged champion in the corn production technology  innovation contest during the 62^nd Farm Youth (4H) National Congress held at the Family Country Hotel and Convention Center in General Santos City in May.

Bryan S. Pungtilan, who majors in Agronomy, represented the region in one of the four main category events for competition in the congress, namely: corn production, rice production, banana processing and preservation, and handicraft/novelty making.  He participated in the corn production technology competition with his paper entitled “Dried Lantana camara (Bang-bangsit) leaves as protectant for stored corn against corn weevil”, his personal experiment. He was motivated to come up with a biopesticide technology to control corn weevil which attacks corn during storage. According to him, the cost of commercial pesticides, which are environmentally hazardous, continues to increase. In his technology, he dried and powderized Lantana camara leaves and mixed them with corn seeds at 1:10 ratio.

He received a certificate of recognition, a medallion, and a cash incentive.

Prior to his winning, Pungtilan joined the Provincial Achievement Day hosted by the Office of the Provincial Agriculture in collaboration with 4H Club, Rural Improvement Club, and the Regional Youth Camp-cum Leadership Training where his technology innovation was selected for the national competition.

The other seven participants from Region I  were students of the Divine Word College of Laoag and Pasuquin National High School; graduates of MMSU CIT and CTE; and an out-of-school youth from San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte.

The congress is an annual activity of the 4H Club where they convene farm youths in the whole country and discuss innovations, updates, and developments in the agricultural and fisheries sectors. It also serves as a venue for young people to rebuild kinship, participate in noteworthy activities, share bliss of success, and look forward with enthusiasm to broadening their role in nation building.