Hi Peter! Your post is really challenging. It is not really easy for the government to deliver services on IT, when there is too much politics. The goal is there, the strategies are there and the resources are already there in the case of the Philippines. Almost all agencies have programs on IT development that extends from the national to the local levels. The problem lies on the implementation and complexity of how transactions (procurement, linkaging/coordination, etc) are being practiced by the government, plus the short tenurial term of government chief executives (under the Philippine government system). The changes of leadership of local government units often results to changes in priorities (no continuity of programs).

But, there there is something good that can result if the government will put IT development among its top agenda. Under the present Philippine administration, the "matuwid na daan" program has been set up. Through the program all government agencies should implement the "transparency seal" that requires posting all programs, activities, services and status of transaction in their respective websites.

In the case of the Department of Agriculture, it has taken upon itself to help bring government goods and services nearer to the farmers and rural communities. The road to develop a well-connected stakeholders through ICT may be long, but we have to start somewhere. As of the present, capability building are being intensified including the provision of subsidies in setting up private-led ICTs (like provision of gadgets - broadband to capacitated organizations.

The DBM has also started rationalizing budget of the government that will focus on programs that can have better and greater impacts, and among these are IT development. So at some points, resource rationalization begins during planning, programming and budgeting that usually starts with consultation with the civil society organizations. If the government can at least be doing right at this stage, chances are, the results can be attained, especially the basic public goods that are not only important to socio-economic development but are also important to rural  IT development like infrastructure, research aand development, extension and policy development.

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.

I agree with you Father G. Sustaining a functional ICT system is truly expensive. But there be some strategies that we can do to make costs affordable. Yes, there are expenses, but the return can be more than generous. It may be that the ROI with an ICT system is much much hogher that the ROI of without ICT. Example is on the marketing side. Take into consideration how erratic the trade pricing of vegetables, in the morning the price is very high so farmers tend to rush harvesting time but in the afternoon when they trade their products, the price drops to very low causing a big loss in profit. With SMS messaging, changes in trade prices can be monitored every hour or even every half an hour. 

But then, I agree with you that the whole structures supporting the agriculture sector should be treated as a whole - from transportation, roads and others.

Going back to reducing ICT cost, we can actually reduce costs if farmers worked through their organization, their cooperatives may operate a functional ICT system and combine information dissemination to individual farmers through print materials as applicable and public announcement through the radio.

It may seem to be the case Sir Sandy that producer organizations, as a body, do not invest in ICT beyond the usual office hardware. But there are producer organizations that considers ICT as a core function with the aim of opening up opportunities for its target audience and clients (say farmers, fishers) to access appropriate information (on policies, programs, technologies, markets) that they can use to develop available resource or mobilize resources to venture into new ventures or expand their current venture to value adding activities. A substantial amount of resources are therefore allocated for ICT development.

The problem however, based on my exprience, is how the resources allocated for ICT are utilized. Along the way, it is often the case that there are diversions made. It may not be intentional, but the cause is more on having people not being able to fully undertand the the holistic view of the purpose by which they are setting up an ICT system, or just the absence of a road map on ICT development.

I would like to be optimistic at this time that the Philippine government has required the setting up of a transparency seal by the different agencies/organizations of the government. The transparency seal should, as directed, contain information on budget and major programs, projects and how these can be accessed by clients.

The Depatment of Agriculture has now allocated a substantial budget for ICT development and ensuring these to be sustainable and functional. Through DA-Agricultural Training Institute has invested in e-learning where courses are offered to farmers and DA also has invested in seeting up the Agriculture and Fisheries Marketing Information System as a medium of market linkage between farmers and buyers.

But acceptedly, the government has yet to invest in much much more as regard ICT, if only to have the small and poor farmers be able to access and become users.

You have post challenging questions Lucy. I believe that ICT can be a powerful tool in ensuring food security. Food are being lost during calamities (drought, floods, frosts), post harvest mishandlings, inadequate drying facilities (drying in public roads causes 5-15% loss) and inappropriate technologies. Technologies are available but are not practiced due to poor dissemination. A functional ICT system would very much promote reduction of food losses. Strategic location of post harvest, storage facilities and processing centers are easier located through ICT, technologies on substitute commodities (drought or flood resistant), post harvest handling technologies can be readily accessed and market requirements (standards, packaging style - whether in sacks or in small bags, size etc) can be immediately known.

Geotagging, showing location of production centers, post harvest and processing centers, storage facilities and service centers, when perfected can significantly help reduce food losses. 

Very true po Sister Eva and Koy. There are production areas in the rural areas being left out because of migration from rural to urban areas. Its not really technology, but there are lot of cases where farmers themselves prod their children to have higher education and get courses on physical and natural sciences because of want to have better quality of life in the future. Take the case of the Banaue Rice Terraces of Ifugao Province (Philippies), there is now an observation that the remaining work forces in the terraces area are the older ones, because most of the children migrated to the urban areas and other countries. But maybe, when adequate interventions (road, irrigtion, technologies, other support structures and services) will be put in place in the rural areas, and agriculture will become scientifically modernized as well as agricultural labor productivity will be comparable to industrial labor productivity, many will remain in the rural areas. 

Its very true today Sir Flor that the challenge of cliimate change adaptation in high risk and vlnerabale communities should get extra attention. One thing that we are therefore focusing on today in the Department of Agriculture is the complettion of Climate Change vulnerability maps that can help in the planning for appropriate interventions that can be provided to ensure that the sector and farmers can be able to adapt to climate change. The ICT is medium by which these vulnerability maps and technology information on climate change adaptation are disseminated to farmers and other farming stakeholders.

Vulnerability mapping then is a tool that can show where extreme weather events at a given period can be either advantageous to one geographic area and disadvantageous to another geographic area or depending on standing crops or commodities. In this way, the appropriate commodities can be grown at a certain period where extreme weather events usually occur of which commodities can withstand extxreme weather conditions. Added information would be he different programs and services that organizations are extending to farmers in these areas and how these programs and services can be accessed. It is really be of great help if these inforation are readily available to farmers through the ICT.

Through ICT, food production in different areas can be readily monitored, and resources can be rationally allocated so that food security can be ensured, as well as livelihood can be sustained.