Continuing education for agri extension
For agriculture extension to be effective, the 3,000 extension workers currently under the local government units should be required to have continuing professional education. This is specially important because our farmers and fisherfolk depend on the technology they receive from these extension workers to compete against imported agricultural goods that increasingly flood our shores.
With our rich land and natural resources, instead of being a net food exporter as we were in the past, we are now a net food importer. Our rural poverty is 40 percent, which is more than two to 20 times worse than Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
On Dec 12, 2015, the Agri-fisheries Alliance (AFA) chose six priority recommendations out of a list of 50 for presentation to the presidential candidates. In a meeting on April 16 with then presidentiable Rodrigo Duterte, the failure of agriculture extension was cited as a major factor behind our agriculture decline.
Major issues
There are two problems. First, too many of the agriculture extension workers devolved to the LGUs are being assigned by the mayor to do non-agriculture jobs. Thus, agriculture is neglected in favor of political tasks. Second, when these workers actually do agriculture, they are not equipped with the most recent technologies which need to be transferred to the farmers and fisherfolk.
In a follow-up three-hour meeting on May 24 with then incoming Agriculure Secretary Manny Pinol, the same recommendation on improving agriculture extension was brought up. Both Duterte and Pinol committed to take decisive action on this pestering issue.
The first part of the problem was addressed by Pinol at a July 6 meeting in Los Baños with Interior and Local Government Secretary Mike Sueno. In front of 300 agriculture stakeholders, Sueno, a former governor and farmer, agreed that many agriculture extension workers were not doing agriculture work. In the same meeting, Pinol and Sueno committed to give the DA more influence over LGU extension workers through a DA-DILG Memo of Agreement.
The second part of the agriculture extension problem, which is the lack of knowledge on the most recent effective technologies, should now be addressed in this DA-MOA. The 30,000 extension workers should now be required to have annual continuing professional education. The DA will make the arrangements for this, while the DILG will ensure it happens.
If workers such as doctors, engineers, accountants and midwives are required to do continuing professional education, why not agriculture extension workers? We depend largely on them for food security as well as alleviating poverty. This can be done through the transfer of effective technology to our farmers and fisherfolk. We need this specially now. This is not only because of imported agriculture products using superior technology. It is also because the climate-change that is now affecting us will decrease our food supply unless we grow our food with climate resilient technologies.
CAMP board meeting
Last Aug. 13, the leaders from the AFA went to Los Baños for the board meeting of the Coalition on Agricultural Modernization in the Philippines (CAMP). CAMP is the AFA member group that represents academe and science. At that meeting, Danny Fausto from AFA sub-group Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc (PCAFI) presented the need for effective technologies. He cited the largely untapped resources of the 118 state universities and colleges in the country. They are not being harnessed adequately to bring the technologies to the extension workers and, consequently, to the farmers and fisherfolk. Instead, they are now spending most of their time helping college students graduate with a degree.
Yet it is the SUCs which best know the agriculture conditions in their specific areas. They are thus equipped to transfer the most appropriate technologies. SUCs should therefore get an additional budget to bring these technologies to the extension workers, who in turn will give these to the farmers and fisherfolk.
Today, the extension workers are not required to have an effective annual continuing professional education. Should the SUC technologies therefore just remain mostly idle in the confines of the SUCs?
Constitution
Article X11 section 14 provides that the “the national development of the reservoir of talents consisting of Filipino scientists, entrepreneurs, professional managers, high level manpower, skilled workers and craftsmen in all fields should be provided by the state.” It is high time that all agriculture extension workers be required to take professional continuing education. The SUCs should be harnessed to help provide this education with DA guidance. This is because the SUCs have the most recent technologies, and know the most appropriate ones for their own specific agriculture areas. This well may be the key to improving agriculture production and alleviating rural poverty.
(The author is chair of Agriwatch, former Secretary for Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects, and former Undersecretary for Agriculture, and Trade and Industry. For inquiries and suggestions, e-mail [email protected] or telefax 8522112)
