2022 LSU Gumbo - Book - Page 230
Jonas
“I came over from the Philippines because I got this chance to study in the
United States. In the Philippines, I worked as a researcher, and in order to get
promoted, I needed to get a graduate degree. That’s what I am pursuing here. I
study plant diseases. My undergraduate research was in microbiology studying
fungi. My favorite disease that I’ve been researching is rice bacterial blight
disease. I’ve been working on this for about ten years now. This research is
important because as the years progress, our population is increasing. We have
to find ways to feed the increasing population. Studying crop diseases helps
farmers and producers to increase their harvests and to decrease their real and
financial losses due to the plant diseases. There are a lot of ways people can help
out without using biotechnology to contribute to the success of the agricultural
sector. For example, just like Covid, if we are aware of how to control the spread
of these plant diseases, we can help the farmers. There’s a law in the Philippines
that you can’t bring some plant materials when you come to the United States.
That prevents the plant diseases from spreading into different areas.”
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