Cabrera renews contract with CREES

Retired agriculturist Isidoro T. Cabrera has signed another contract to serve as agriculture consultant for the Northern Marianas College–Cooperative Research Education and Extension Service.

Cabrera renewed his contract for another year just last week and said he plans to stick with the extension office for another two to three years.

Cabrera, 53, retired from the college in 1998 but after six months, the college asked for his services again, so he returned to work in a consultancy position. “I came back because of the requests of the local farmers,” he added.

He recalled that when he retired almost a decade ago, he planned on starting a business as well as becoming a full time farmer, but it seemed that local farmers were not done with him yet.

Cabrera said he opted to continue working for the college to provide further assistance to local farmers. He said he knew it was the right thing to do, being a local farmer himself.

He added that he plans to continue providing his expertise on insects, plant diseases, crops, rodent control programs and site project analysis. “There are many things going on now [at NMC-CREES],” he said.

Cabrera has always been asked to lead CREES as its director but he said he never likes administrative work, preferring to be in the field, directly giving assistance to the CNMI farmers and ranchers. “Even though I could be qualified, my heart goes to people who need my help,” he added.

Cabrera graduated from Vudal Agriculture College in Papua New Guinea in 1975 through a local government scholarship. He landed a job at the Department of Lands and Natural Resources when he finished college. When NMC-CREES was founded, he was immediately transferred to work for the extension office in 1987.

Among his numerous trainings off island, Cabrera said, his one-month exposure and training at the University of the Philippines in Los Banos, Laguna, the Philippines, in 1988 was among the best.

He said he was trained in seed technology, advance crop production and many more. “It was one of the best training I had,” he added. During his training in UPLB, he also visited several research facilities such as the International Rice Research Institute and Institute of Plant Breeding in UPLB.

Cabrera is the son of the late war veteran Gregorio Camacho Cabrera, who became the first veteran to be buried at the newly opened CNMI Veterans Cemetery last month. Cabrera is one of the four sons of the late veteran, among 12 other siblings.