‘Well-trained farmers with modern scientific skills will complement the President’s vision for a progressive agricultural sector for the nation.’
PRESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos was serious when he said at the onset of his administration that he will give priority to agriculture and food security.
True enough, his proposed National Expenditure Program (NEP) or the 2023 national budget submitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate was quite biased in favor of agriculture. The Department of Agriculture (DA), its attached agencies and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) have an allocation of P184.1 billion, a whopping 39.2 percent increase from last year’s figure. This amount includes P29.5 billion for irrigation services.
The President’s desire to provide farmers with the right implements, modern machinery, affordable fertilizer, access to water, and marketing infrastructure like farm-to-market roads should however be complemented with training and support facilities to enable younger members of farming families to take over the enterprise. As Filipino farmers get old and retire, the youths tend to move away from the fields, working and staying in the cities, leaving the towns with a lack of young farm hands to till the soil.
Here is where the program of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to establish farm schools in localities takes on a relevant challenge. TESDA is encouraging more farmers, cooperatives, and entrepreneurs to establish more farm schools in their respective localities to further spur rural development. The rationale is that increased agriculture-based training can improve the productivity and competitiveness of farmers.
The agency is tasked with giving Filipinos in the workforce access to technical vocational education and training (TVET) but in this case, it is agriculture-related. The training has been designed so that our farmers will have the right knowledge, skills and attitudes that will help increase their agricultural production through new technologies and entrepreneurial activities.
TESDA’s Program on Accelerating Farm School Establishment (PAFSE) to promote the proliferation of farm schools, and the use of a “farmer to farmer, learning by doing” methodology has started to notch gains lately. They run qualification titles such as Agricultural Crop Production, Aquaculture, Horticulture, Organic Agriculture Production, Rice Machinery Operations, and Animal Production, among many others.
Young and old farmers are being served and trained at some 399 farmer field school programs registered with TESDA and being implemented in various farm schools as well as private and public institutions nationwide. Well-trained farmers with modern scientific skills will complement the President’s vision for a progressive agricultural sector for the nation.