Should the Department of Agriculture get more involved in agriculture education?
For Simeon Cabansag (0908-313-4646), agriculture dean of Pangasinan State University (PSU) at Sta Maria, Pangasinan, the answer is a definite “yes.”
Dean Cabansag told us how the DA’s Bureau of Agricultural Research under Director Nicomedes Eleazar had co-funded with the PSU a Central Crop Research Laboratory.
But more important than this increased collaboration is the adoption of a new paradigm, or mindset, by more agricultural colleges.
Mission redefinition
Cabansag is very excited about what he has seen at PSU in the last three years and this led his PSU team to redefine PSU’s mission.
Instead of just educating students within the four classroom walls, he believes PSU should use its faculty’s and students’ expertise to uplift the welfare of farmers.
Cabansag has a three-pronged approach.
First, he seeks to change the farmer’s understanding of agriculture from concepts like “growing rice” to “making money.”
He cited the case of a farmer who was motivated to do soil analysis on his farm to increase his income, instead of just using the same fertilizer as his neighbor.
Through soil analysis, the farmer could determine the right combination of fertilizers, even shifting to organic fertilizers to make money in the short and long run.
Second, Cabansag mobilized the PSU faculty to not just teach students within the classroom’s four walls, but to also bring them to deprived, depressed and underprivileged barangays.
The idea is to give the farmers new technologies to achieve the new goal of making money.
Third, Cabansag sends his extension service students to do a survey of the needs and proposed solutions in the identified barangay. Depending on the needs, the relevant faculty and students in crop science proceed to give the farmers the necessary technologies and assistance.
Cabansag says: “What the farmers need is very simple technology. But they don’t even know it. This is where we come in. The result is significantly improved farmer incomes.”
To make sure this technology transfer is done efficiently, both “mothers’ classes” and “farmers’ classes” are organized to follow through with implementation. This is not limited to agricultural production.
For example, in the mothers’ class, Cabansag says that women now play less “tong-its” and get into livelihood activities. A key example is waste recycling (i.e., the rice straw is now not wasted but made into baskets for sale in the market). In the farmers’ class, additional income-generating activities are undertaken. Examples are mushroom culture, organic farming and growing the seedlings from the PSU’s tissue culture laboratory.
New paradigm
There are two main benefits from this change in the agricultural college’s mission to include improving the lives of poor farmers in the community.
The first is that the students are exposed to practical problems and are encouraged to solve them under the guidance of the faculty. They are then not only more skilled in practical terms, but also motivated to stay in agriculture because they see improved incomes and the significant help they give others.
The second is that the agricultural college becomes a significant force in improving the lives of the farmers in its community. This is a much-needed breakthrough.
DA role
DA, with its annual budget of more than P50 billion, should now allocate a substantial amount of attention and resources to helping agricultural colleges adopt this new paradigm.
It did so with PSU and must now do so with other agricultural colleges. DA should also team up with the local government units (LGUs) in this endeavor.
With DA’s support of this new agricultural college paradigm, our farmers will regain their important role in our society.
(The author is chairman of Agriwatch. For inquiries and suggestions, e-mail agriwatch_phil@yahoo.com or telefax (02) 85221.)