SOA on Smart Rice Agriculture to hit the airwaves in June

BUTUAN CITY- The Regional Technical Working Group (RTWG) will be conducting again the School-on-the-Air (SOA) Program on Smart Rice Agriculture (SRA) in Region 13. This is along with the National Rice Program targetted for the year 2022 of the Department of Agriculture headed by Secretary William D. Dar.

The SOA on SRA will be launched on June 15, 2022 for Surigao del Sur. On June 16, 2022 for Surigao del Norte and June 17, 2022 for Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur. The said dates were based on the agreements made during the briefings conducted.

Series of briefings was conducted in the four provinces of the region. In Agusan del Sur on May 6, 2022, and Agusan del Norte on May 11. On the other hand, Surigao del Sur briefing was conducted on May 12 while Surigao del Norte on May 13, 2022.

SOA Rice — Mr. Aurelius P. Arais, Public Relations Officer II of the Department of Agriculture-Caraga encourages SOA Coordinators of Surigao del Norte to always utilize radio along with the other modernized gadgets to reach more farmers especially to those in far-flung areas.

Said activities were attended by the Municipal Agriculturists and Agricultural Extension Workers from the different cities and municipalities of the respective provinces. This is also in coordination with the Provincial Agriculture Offices through its Provincial Farmcasters and SOA Coordinators.

SOA enrollees comprising farmers, students, AEWs and other stakeholders from Surigao del Sur will be catching up the program at Radyo Bandera station in Tandag City every Wednesday, 5-6 o’clock in the morning. Listeners in Surigao del Norte will also catch-up at RMN-DXKE IFM station based in Surigao City every Thursday at same time starting June 16, 2022. While Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur SOA learners will be listening every Friday at 5-6 o’clock in the morning in Hope Radio station, Butuan City.

Dubbed as Mga Bag-ong Teknolohiya sa Panghumayan, the SOA SRA will help catalyze agriculture modernization through the massive and sustained education of smallholder farmers and local intermediaries on modern and innovative technologies and approaches to smart rice production. It also aimed at sharing cutting-edge technologies and innovative approaches to help maximize rice productivity in medium and low yield provinces through radio, amplifying the limited reach of agricultural extension workers. This is with an overall total of 2,200 SOA enrollees for Region 13 this year.

Said SOA program was spearheaded by the Department of Agriculture-Caraga, Agricultural Training Institute-Regional Training Center 13 and Philippine Rice Research Institute-Agusan Experiment Station.