Thirty-two trainers from different Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) Farm Schools in the region attended and completed the Digital Agriculture Course conducted by The Agricultural Training Institute – Regional Training Center IX (ATI-RTC IX).
The Digital Agriculture Course will complement the Farmer Field School as it aims to capacitate and prepare Farm School representatives to implement a digital literacy training for farmers in their respective areas.
Sharing the same goal and vision with ATI and Smart Communications, Inc.'s Digital Farmers Program (DFP), the Digital Agriculture Course for RCEF will make use of the DFP modules and incorporate the promotion of rice-related agriculture applications and tools such as the Rice Crop Manager, AgriDOC app, Binhing Palay, Rice Doctor, and Pinoy Rice Knowledge Bank among others.
The said program will not only prepare the Farm School representatives/trainers to implement the DFP in the grassroots level, but also encourage them to embrace the role as information and communication technology (ICT) guides for farmers and maximize their service delivery through ICT tools.
One of the highlights of the activity was the demo back session or micro-teaching that gauge the participants understanding and ability to cascade their learnings to their future participants. All participants were able to present their assigned topics and were able to give insights and comments to their co-participants as well. The resource persons also gave comments and recommendations after the activity.
Also, each of the farm schools were able to craft their action plan before the training ends.
“There are things that may hinder our farmers because of lack of ICT and poor eyesight but if we really have the heart and compassion to help, we will do everything we can do so that our farmer will be able to acknowledge the benefits of this program.” said Ms. Mary Grace Roble from Enrico Farm, one of the participants of the training.
The Digital Agriculture Course was successfully conducted last September 21-23, 2022 at Chandler Suites, Pagadian City.
