Farms-Schools: Educating farmers

Over the past few months, I have been going around the provinces to visit small family farms.

These enlightening visits help prove the point that if one has the right aptitude, knowledge, entrepreneurial and management skills, people can earn a lot from agriculture.

The other reason why we are visiting such farms is to explore the possibility of the owner opening up the farms for students to do on-the-job training under his or her tutelage.

To our surprise, all of them are open to such an idea.

Unique systems

It just dawned on me that these farmers have developed their own technology and farming systems through years of experimentation and they are just too willing to share what they know.

I can see that there is a sense of pride in what they are doing.

Two years ago, the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and the Foundations for People Development embarked on a program to train agriculture entrepreneurs, or simply “agripreneurs.”

There are now two batches of students under the ladderized programs.

The Diploma in Agriculture Entrepreneurship is offered to out-of-school youth from Benguet and Negros Oriental. The other batch is composed of students from Palawan under the Diploma in Eco-Farm Tourism Entrepreneurship.

What is unique about these programs is that students spend one month in school and three months on the job per semester.

During the two-year program, the curriculum is designed on a trimestral basis; thus, students get a chance to be exposed to six different farms during the program.

The most important aspect of the program is the on-the-job training because here, the students get to be mentored by agripreneurs who are successful in their business. They stay and work with these agripreneurs for three months.

This system of education is what is known today as the dual training system that originated from Germany.

Thus, the real learning for our students to prepare them to become agripreneurs happens at the farms where they are mentored by successful agripreneurs.

We have realized that the best teachers to teach farming as a business are not the PhDs or masters degree holders in the universities but successful farmers themselves.

Farms-Schools Network

As a result, the Farms-Schools Network was formalized last year so that partner farms will also benefit from the other program that the ATI is promoting—agritourism.

Our trainees, while they are on the farm, give the agripreneur the taste of accommodating guests in their farms.

Students pay for their board and lodging and they work for free as their “sweat equity” for the free training they get while they are being hosted in the farm.

This experience will now give the agripreneur that he can earn extra revenues by cultivating visitors, other than just cultivating crops and livestock in his farm.

Beneficial arrangement

Such arrangement is truly beneficial to both trainees and agripreneurs.

There is another program being pushed by ATI Director Asterio P. Saliot along this line. This is the Schools for Practical Agriculture, or SPA for short. Here the farmer makes his own farm a training center and he himself is the trainer.

Usually, his clients are existing farmers or people who want to make farming a hobby or are preparing to keep them productive after retirement. He earns income from the fees he charges for the training, room and board. He can even sell seedlings, farm inputs like organic fertilizers and various other concoctions used in organic farming.

In my recent trip, I visited with a group of people from the Department of Agriculture the Dona Laureana Rosales Practical School for Agriculture in Bagumbayan, Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte. (Kauswagan is the place where MILF combatants held hostage several residents inside the Municipal Hall in 2008).

We even met the MILF leader of that incident who has now gone back to the folds of the law.

It was very heartwarming to see Muslims and Christians living together in harmony and they feel so proud that they now have a school where they can study regardless of age, background, or religion.

We also visited Barangay Tingin-tingin that used to be a hotbed area for separatists. Now the place is peaceful and residents are cultivating coconuts, corn, cassava and other crops.

After seeing these places, I venture to say that the root cause of insurgency is poverty and the abject lack of opportunities for people to see a brighter future for them and for their children.

Hats off to Dir. Saliot and his staff from the ATI and Mayor Rommel Arnado for showing us that there are government people truly serious in serving their clientele.

It is interesting to note that Mayor Arnado stayed in the United States for 27 years and came back upon the urging of his kababayans to run for mayor.

True public service

How I wish the other departments and agencies of the Department of Agriculture and local chief executives from governors to mayors make true their promise of serving the small ordinary folks so that we bring peace and prosperity to the countryside.

Truly, education is the best investment we can make, not the distribution of farm equipment and machinery, much less fake or adulterated fertilizers.

(This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines. The author is Vice-Chair of the MAP Agribusiness and Countryside Development Committee, and Dean of the MFI Farm Business School. Feedback at [email protected]. For previous articles, visit www.map.org.ph.)