Thanks Mawaki! I am Henry Ligot from the Philippines. A recent news in the media highlighted that despite years of investments in agriculture inn the Philippines, the sector remains heavily inefficient, farmers are aging, in debt, and dwindling in numbers, and on the whole not competitive with our neighbors, in fact, we prefer to import chickens, pork, rice, etc. because transport in the country is expensive (we have 7,000+ islands). This is why a national policy on eAgriculture is urgently needed, because ICT can address the factors (islands of producers and markets, ignorance of market conditions, lack of means for producers to tap into the ICT system, etc.) that contribute so much to inefficiencies and lack of competitiveness. All our expertise teaching farmers how to be more productive is wasted because those with more resources (middle men, who control the farm-to-market infrastructure) hold more power. ICT can help level the playing field, and a national policy can help achieve that. Henry LigotUA&P School of Sciences and Engineering

On Monday, February 25, 2013, e-Agriculture wrote:

Thanks Mawaki! I am Henry Ligot from the Philippines. A recent news in the media highlighted that despite years of investments in agriculture inn the Philippines, the sector remains heavily inefficient, farmers are aging, in debt, and dwindling in numbers, and on the whole not competitive with our neighbors, in fact, we prefer to import chickens, pork, rice, etc. because transport in the country is expensive (we have 7,000+ islands). This is why a national policy on eAgriculture is urgently needed, because ICT can address the factors (islands of producers and markets, ignorance of market conditions, lack of means for producers to tap into the ICT system, etc.) that contribute so much to inefficiencies and lack of competitiveness. All our expertise teaching farmers how to be more productive is wasted because those with more resources (middle men, who control the farm-to-market infrastructure) hold more power. ICT can help level the playing field, and a national policy can help achieve that. Henry LigotUA&P School of Sciences and Engineering

On Monday, February 25, 2013, e-Agriculture wrote:

In the Philippines, one key segment of the value chain the e-strategy of the Department of Agriculture with the help of private ICT enterprises is targeting is what can be called the KM chain, the transfer of data, information and knowledge from buyers to producers, older to younger farmers, financing sources to farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs, and vice versa. One application that has been operational since 2007 is ePinoyFARMS, a resource management platform that helps farmers, producers and agriculture educators to monitor movements along the whole value chain. The system also allows farmers, young and old, to learn new or review tried and tested agricultural technologies and practices.

In the Philippines, one key segment of the value chain the e-strategy of the Department of Agriculture with the help of private ICT enterprises is targeting is what can be called the KM chain, the transfer of data, information and knowledge from buyers to producers, older to younger farmers, financing sources to farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs, and vice versa. One application that has been operational since 2007 is ePinoyFARMS, a resource management platform that helps farmers, producers and agriculture educators to monitor movements along the whole value chain. The system also allows farmers, young and old, to learn new or review tried and tested agricultural technologies and practices.

Here's the link for those who want some more information on the 5 years our Ministry of Agriculture has been on this project: http://ati.da.gov.ph/ati2/blog/joserey-alo/2012/e-learning-numbers

The growth is quite impressive, since this makes knowledge available to anyone with a telecom connection, which private sector telcos are deploying nationwide.

Thanks Nganwani for this list. As regards no. 2 in your list: the Philippine legislature is working on a law to adopt the Farm Business School (FBS) model of an NGO (MFI Foundation) as an alternative to university studies. The FBS aims to produce more agripreneurs (agricultural entrepreneurs) who can also work as Farm Supervisors. This is part of the educational reform going on in the country, where the 4-year secondary education curriculum will be expanded to 6-years by 2016. The FBS will run parallel to the industry-oriented post-secondary Technical Vocational Education and Training Program. One of our pressing problems is that the average age of agricultural workers/farmers is 57 years old and above, and the sector is about to experience a demographic shortage as more younger people prefer to work in factories or in service industries.

Based on the Philippine experience of the last 5 years, our key lessons are:
1. Government, together with stakeholders, crafted the national e-Agriculture strategy as a roadmap
2. Once a law was passed (Republic Act 8435), appoint a lead agency (Agricultural Training Institute) within a lead Ministry (Department of Agriculture).
3. Network and empower the stakeholders: state universities, farmers groups, private telecomm sector, businessmen, etc. to optimize resource utilization (even use of radio in remote areas)
4. Divide the work: private sector takes care of ICT infrastructure (including software) while ATI (government) focuses on content and reaching beneficiaries.
5. Government provides incentives for new players to the eFarming (advisers and consultants for new farming technologies), eTrading (buyers and growers/sellers), and eLearning (educaiton and training of farmers) infrastructure.

The government is sharing a lot of information with farmers and fisherfolk, which is driving up acceptance. Like an Orchestra Conductor, government is getting a lot of "musicians" involved and playing a symphony of agricultural growth 

Here's an informative link on the Philippine experience (Powerpoint slides) based on a presentation of Ms Pam Mappala of ATI: http://www.slideshare.net/iaald/ict-initiatives-of-the-philippines-for-…

Thanks, Towela, for sharing the document. I've been looking for something like it for some time.

I agree with you that lack of continuity from one regime to the next is wreaking havoc on a country's economy. This is also our problem in the Philippines. Fortunately, we have many good civil servants in the Agricultural Department who are really concerned with agriculture and who manage to get some things done even with the chaos and corruption at the top levels.

I also agree that legilsative participation is tough especially for farmers. While the middlemen and big producers are active in lobbying for laws favorable to them (incentives, new roads and infrastructure, etc.), our farmers despite the big help of local and foreign NGOs are neglected for the most part.

This is why putting together farmers and ICT can be really (and already) making a big difference: by giving them the means to communicate, they become not only economic but also political players.   

Belated birthday greetings, Mawaki!

I'm involved in the education of farmers in two Farm Business Schools where young farmers are taught agricultural entrepreneurship skills. The two perspectives of e-ducation - entrepreneurship and electronics media use - are part of the curriculum. We're talking to legislators to replicate this nationwide in the Philippines, but that's where the rubber hits the road. We know that educating the young farmers is the future of agriculture in our country (and all the others with the agri resources), but without legislative support, all we'll have are pilot schools that barely make a dent in the national scene. But we're working on it.

Last Monday, 4 March, I was with a top executive of a huge Philippine company that sells feeds (from cassava) to agribusinessmen. He spends thousands of hours each year talking to farmers, and he told me that the secret of his effectiveness in getting them to adopt new technologies is rather simple: get the farmers involved right from the start and learning to think like them by asking himself the question "What's in it for me as a farmer?" In other words, communicate properly the message of how they can earn more and you have them. But it doesn't end there. Selling new technologies needs trust, and since the results take some time, he told me that the best way to gain their trust is to spend time with them. Farmers are used to salesmen selling them new things and disappearing when the "supposed" results are due. The reason this executive is so successful is that he knows his technology, if properly implemented, will work. He knows it will work if the farmers make it work (by following the procedures). And he knows they will make it work if they see his confidence and he spends time visiting them, asking them about their problems, suggesting solutions, etc.

Farming is a time-intensive operation, but once you invest time and you win over their trust, you're on the way to sustainable success. Of course, sometimes things don't work out as it did recently (because we had several strong typhoons that caused terrible damage), so he had to go out to the farms again to encourage the farmers not to give up.

While him as private sector orchestrates all these, he depends on the farmers themselves, NGOs, government agencies, and agricultural schools to provide support. The key is the farmer, get into their minds, address their concerns, and chances of success are great. This is what our Dept of Agriculture did when they drew up their e-Agri strategy. But planning is one thing, implementation is another.