DA-RFO 6 Regional Agriculture and Fisheries Information Section Chief and Regional SOA-SRA Host. Mr. James Earl Ogatis speaks to the SOA coordinators of Guimaras and Iloilo during the inception meeting in Iloilo City.
Western Visayas – The Agricultural Training Institute – Regional Training Center 6 in partnership with the Department of Agriculture – Regional Field Office 6 and various Local Government Units in the provinces of Aklan, Capiz, Guimaras, Iloilo, and Negros Occidental convened for a series of coordination meeting in preparation for the School-on the-Air on Smart Rice Agriculture (SOA-SRA) set to air on March 2023.
The SOA-SRA aims to facilitate the massive and sustained education of smallholder farmers and smart rice agriculture through radio. Likewise, the program intends to link smallholder farmers with knowledge, technology, and other rice industry providers, heighten awareness and mobilize strong support and involvement of the rural populace in agriculture programs.
During the meeting, the assigned agencies presented the implementation guidelines of the SOA-SRA. Aside from these, they shared the roles of the different agencies involved and the municipalities' facilitators. They targeted 2,900 rice farmers as SOA-SRA enrollees in the five provinces of Western Visayas.
Moreover, ATI Region 6 distributed enrollment forms and documentary templates to the facilitators to begin participants' enrollment in their areas.
They were 58 SOA-SRA coordinators that attended the inception meetings from February 6-9, 2023, in the provinces of Aklan, Capiz, Iloilo, and Negros Occidental.
