“An ambitious upscaling of science, technology, and innovations, especially the results of good research, can transform whole municipalities, provinces, regions. Let us then put more ambition into our research upscale,” Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar encouraged the officials of state universities and colleges (SUCs).
With its critical role in ensuring the country’s food security, Secretary Dar challenged the SUCs to fast-track their research and implement them in a big way with the resources at their disposal including large tracts of land and government funding.
According to the agri chief, smart farms and precision agriculture need to be upscaled and become the norm to complement the large-scale mechanization being implemented by the Department of Agriculture (DA).
He identified programs of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund and the massive soil revival program of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) — a non-profit, non-political public international research organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa — as examples for commendable upscaling that could benefit all Filipino farmers by improving their yield.
“The first step to successful massive upscaling is getting to the heart of the communities around you with a combination of consistent extension work and information dissemination,” the agri chief noted.
Secretary Dar added that SUCs should equip students to run and manage the country’s food systems, and hone heir business sense to contribute to the DA’s campaign for the professionalization of the agri-fishery sector.
“Our educational institutions are the lens by which our people see the world. But these institutions should look outward and engage others outside of them that flesh out their purpose: the financing institutions, the cooperatives, the farmers and fishers and their children,” he said.
The agri chief also thanked the SUCs for keeping “the fire of wisdom burning and compassion flowing” as they carry out their responsibilities and never letting their guards down. ### (Gumamela Celes Bejarin, DA-AFID)
