E-Agriculture

Question 2 (opens 14 Nov.)

Question 2 (opens 14 Nov.)

 Question 2: What are the priority areas that producer organizations should invest in with regard to ICT?

 


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Joyce Wendam
Joyce WendamDepartment of AgriculturePhilippines

The Department of Agriculture is also offering scholarships for students who would like to take up agriculture and agriculture-related courses funded under the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement  Fund (ACEF).  DA is granitng free tution, miscellaneous expenses, monthy stipend, book allowance and even thesis allowance to the qualified scholars.  The scholars may enrol only however in accredited State Universities and Colleges (SUCs).  This scholarship program has been existing for at least four years now.

But in our place, in Iloilo, we have one producer organization, the Tubungan Federation of Farmers' Association, Inc. (TFFAI), helping out fourth year high schools students in their locality to obtain a scholarship for a four-year agriculture course from a local state university (Capiz State University or CAPSU) through the Department of Agriculture (DA).   This is under the DA-CSO/PO/SUC Partnership.  The Farmers' Federation is paying for the miscellaneous fees of the scholars while the tuition is being granted by the SUC, 100% free.  On the part of the DA, it serves as a link between the Federation and the state university, and grants agricultural programs and projects to the school like the Goat Production Project, research projects, etc.

 

Raquel Laquiores
Raquel LaquioresPhilippines

That's nice to hear Joyce but it is not much disseminated to high school students. I believe that they are exposed to other courses than agriculture, where they are promised of a better future and life. But in agriculture, I seldom see ads encouraging students to take up programs in agriculture for college education. In my years of going to different high schools for career talks, I don't hear them willingly say that they would be taking up Agriculture as their course. It is also in this reason why only few take this course inspite of the many jobs that await them after finishing courses related to this.

Kelly

Joyce Wendam
Joyce WendamDepartment of AgriculturePhilippines

Thanks for your observation Kelly.  Massive information campaign and dissemination is what we really need including dissemination of success stories of agripreneurs to attract high school students to take up agriculture courses.  Career talks to various high schools should also be done as what you're doing.  Thank you very much for those insights.

Fatima Cascon
Fatima CasconPhilippines

 

Good point Joy, in addition, targeting agricultural areas in conducting career talks and information dissemination by convincing rural people there is no need for them to leave their communities to seek for greener pastures what they seek for is actually right in front of them!  This now solves not just food supply issues but overcrowding issues, etc.

Years back, students were told to get good education in order to be employed or get better jobs, the orientation changed when business schools mushroomed and now students are encourage to be entrepreneurs.  This mindset shift can also be established soon.

Rita Bustamante
Rita BustamantePhilippines

So true Kel, advertisement for agricultural colleges or the promotion as a course in recruitment of students is not strong.

I guess too Kel, it is not a prefered course. The younger generation finds farming too slow to the quick buck of call centers and going abroad for greener pastures.

Rita Bustamante
Rita BustamantePhilippines

<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>So true Kelly, In the years of immersion programs that I have been, farming is never a course or a profession to pursue. At one time as I brought the students to an immersion program up in Bontok, I saw mostly the older generation rather than the young help work on the land. I asked one farmer why?&nbsp;</div><div>He expressed that the younger generation are impatient and produce is cheap. They would rather go to the cities or be domestic workers abroad.<br>

Joyce Wendam
Joyce WendamDepartment of AgriculturePhilippines

Through partnerships, universities could play a significantly broader role on the world's efforts to employ ICTs for sustainable development and poverty reduction.  Take the situation in China.  A group of major agricultural universities agreed to explore ways to support the nation's agricultural extension system. (see http://ip.cals.cornell.edu/ commdev/agunivproj.cfn). 

How such universities can be partners  is illustrated by a list of proposed activities that they could undertake.

1.  Conduct localized eReadiness studies and expand them to include questions about the information needs of village and rural populations.

2.  Convert their own research and "academic" knowledge into relevant and applicable information for agricultural communities in their provinces, and, in the process, become contributing partners to the China Gateway and the MOA rural information network.

3.  Continuously survey and filter external sources of development information and make it relevant to particular agricultural or climatic zones. 

4.  Provide telecenters with student interns, information databases; and provide training for telecenter staffs, local organizations (such as health providers and extension), and the surrounding community.

5.  Conduct research on ways to maximize and evaluate the benefits of ICT-for-development, including studies of innovative approaches to sustaining telecenters, and possibly linking them to the inevitable growth of ecommerce in the country.

Threaded throughout these agricultural university proposed activities is the immersion of faculty and students in the uses of ICT for development and poverty alleviation - with the expectation that in the future they can serve as ICT "champions" in their professions and in their communities.(http://wsispapers.choike.org/ict_telecenters_dev.pdf)  -  Joyce Wendam

Rita Bustamante
Rita BustamantePhilippines

This will be a good research as to how this activities are seen in countries like ours in southeast asia.

<NB: edited by facilitator>

 

I believe that ICTs can also work for producers, if they are used to network with other stakeholders.

In this case, the ICTs would be a tool to help the group connect with other producing groups, those in the market, groups that use the same inputs etc. When this happens, the producers become a formidable entity that can agitate for their needs, from whoever they need them from. It would also help the groups exchange ideas, and insights in the day to day running of their organizations.

From this,  the groups can organise education especially on issues that directly affects them, connect with other groups and share and gain from their experiences.

I am thinkning in terms of especially information disemination for the rural farmers who are mostly illiterate. In other cases, it may be the issue of the language in which the information is in. When I think of Kenya, we have 42 tribes that speak their own disticnt languages, others are so far flung from the urban areas, the organization would have a better shot at diseminating this informatiuon as those in the group that understand English or Kiswahili - the national language can easily translate it for them.

Susan Balanza
Susan BalanzaPhilippines

I agree with you anne. Connecting organizations through ICT is a great approach to facilitate exchange of information, ideas, technologies and to facilitate trading (market matching, supply/input trade) among others. Even with a functional ICT system if users have a difficulty of interpreting information due to language/dialect barriers, the objectives of the ICT remains unattained.

Hence, among the things that organizations can invest on in terms of ICT is on training and capability building as regard communication using common languages/dialects, or may employ communication experts to do translations of important and relevant information into the local dialect.

It would be rational to complement electronically operated ICT systems with print and broadcast media where informations are disseminated using local dialects.