“Produce graduates who are not only job seekers but job creators.”

This was the challenge posed by Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar to the country’s state universities and colleges (SUCs) and other higher educational institutions in his speech at the investiture ceremony of the new president of the Central Mindanao University (CMU) on September 16, 2019.

According to the agri chief, SUCs must reinvent themselves and make generations of today useful.

“Statistics show that out of the 7,000 graduates every year, only 10-15 percent gets employed,” Dar said.

The Secretary added that this clearly implicates wastage in human capital.

Dar also urged the members of the academe to be agents in bringing progress and enhancing development process in the province, region, and the whole country.

“Kailangan po na kayo ay may puso at damdamin para ang ituturo ninyo ay akma sa kailangan ng bayan,” he said.

In support of agri-industrialization under Dar’s “New Thinking” for Agriculture, Northern Mindanao gets machinery assistance to enhance mechanization activities and provide production support for hybrid rice production.

Dar awarded to CMU, more than P7.4 million-worth of agricultural interventions. The assistance consists of a four-wheel-drive hand tractor, mechanical rice transplanter, mobile rice mill, direct seeder, and flash dryer.

The machineries are parts of the government’s aid to the rice farmers of Maramag who will benefit from the technology dissemination program of CMU.

In his keynote speech, Agriculture Secretary thanked the management of the university for constantly partnering with the Department of Agriculture in elevating the level of agriculture in Northern Mindanao. ### (Adora Rodriguez, DA-AFID)