THE COLLEGE OF Agriculture and Forestry (CAF) of Negros Oriental State University–Bayawan-Sta. Catalina Campus experienced last week a very unprecedented increase in enrollment this first semester of Academic Year 2018—2019.

According to Prof. Pinky Gabuan, other than the No Tuition Fee policy of Republic Act 10931 for state universities and colleges (SUCs) and the city's intensive farm tourism campaign with the complimenting support of the K to 12 agri tracks of DepEd Bayawan City Division, the high increase in enrolment—from 2017's 190 students to this year's more than 900 in Crop Science, Farm Production, and Animal Science courses respectively—pushed a “very big impact in the agriculture programs of the city” and showed a “revival of the almost-forgotten identity of NONAS as an agricultural school.”

Considered as the biggest of all nine NORSU campuses in the province, NORSU-BSC in history started as Tolong Junior High School (TJHS) then was renamed as Negros Oriental Rural School (NORS). NORS later became Negros Oriental National Agricultural School (NONAS). Sometime in the 1990s, NONAS changed as a satellite campus of Cental Visayas Polytechnic College (CVPC) then finally called NORSU-BSC by virtue of RA 9299 on June 24, 2004 with Henry Alegria Sojor, Ph.D. as its first University President.