PH DA Capturing The Full Power Of The Digital

In this Digital Age, the DA-ATI should be #1 in terms of knowledge dissemination. First Class.

The Agricultural Training Institute, ATI, is the official training arm of the Department of Agriculture, DA – as such, it should be on top of the situation. Well, with the video above, it’s trying to be. But there is more to be done. Like: Showing every single step. Putting in English captions.

Do you realize that prior knowledge is no longer a barrier to learning anything new?

That video is on practical ensiling with plastic bags, for the goats: using sugarcane tops, corn, sorghum, napier, even rice straw. Ensiling keeps the nutrients and moisture in the leaves while they await to be fed to livestock.

ATI’s digital work has just begun! In its own website, ATI says:

Extension services continue to evolve. With the challenges that extension workers and farmers face, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) continues to explore various strategies to improve its efforts as the extension and training arm of the Department of Agriculture.

The top image is my screen grab of a demonstration of “Paano Ang Wastong Paggawa Ng Silage?” (What Is The Right Way To Prepare Silage?) It is an evolution of ATI extension because it is virtual, not simply physical.

Now, there are 41 training centers all in all under ATI. If extension is to evolve, and it should, without planning and coordination, we are talking of 41 training centers producing similar video materials on a total of 41 Philippine crops (my low estimate)!

(1) Abaca
(2) Ampalaya
(3) Avocado
(4) Banana
(5) Beans
(6) Cabbage
(7) Calamansi
(8) Cassava
(9) Chico
(10) Coconut
(11) Coffee
(12) Corn 
(13) Cotton
(14) Cucumber
(15) Durian
(16) Eggplant
(17) Garlic
(18) Hot pepper
(19) Jackfruit
(20) Lanzones
(21) Mabolo
(22) Mango
(23) Mungo
(24) Okra
(25) Onion
(26) Papaya
(27) Passion fruit
(28) Peanut
(29)  Pineapple
(30) Pomelo
(31) Rambutan
(32) Rice
(33) Santol
(34) Squash
(35) Strawberry
(36) Sugarcane
(37) Sweet pepper
(38) Sweet potato
(39) Tobacco
(40) Tomato
(41) Watermelon

That’s only my fast list. (And I have not made mention of livestock.)

What am I driving at here? Already, the ATI has 41 crops to produce learning materials for.

Careful!

The ATI must first prepare separate working sets of the digital materials for the 41 crops. Initially, should the ATI distribute the work so that each of the centers works on only 1 crop? Maybe, but there should be Institute-wide final review and recommendation.

Here is the digital package I’m thinking for each crop:

I separate the Learning Materials (texts & still images) from the Training Materials (video accompanied by captions).

The Learning Materialsshould include the following (along with sources of data & information):

(1) Names of crop: common and local
(2) Economic importance:
(3) Uses

The Training Materialsshould show digitally everything from selecting planting materials to caring to harvesting to marketing. Every single step.

ATI, with the Digital Age, you never had it so good! Don’t make our farmers feel bad by failing them!@517

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Knorr Of Big Business Unilever Thinks Big Business Regenerative Agriculture – My Tiny Country PH Also Should!

Image
“Knorr’s plan for 50 regenerative agriculture projects is predicted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water use by an estimated 30% while improving biodiversity, soil health and livelihoods.” That is regenerative agriculture (RA) news by Julian Cirineo (05 Nov 2021, “Unilever Wants To Rethink How Farms Work To Secure Food And Resources For The Future,” Rappler , rappler.com ). Note: 50 (not 5 only) RA projects to improve greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and water use by 30% – plus improving biodiversity, soil health and livelihoods. Note the last 7 words in the above paragraph. How can RA improve biodiversity? RA requires that the farmer practices multiculture (a few or many crops grown at the same time in the same place), where monoculture (such as rice-only or corn-only) is the practice – the biodiversity improves crop health because of the ensuing balance of nature, such as some organisms feed on other organisms that would otherwise become pests or cause diseases. RA is your
Read more

In Looking At The Crown Of Thorns, I Found The Clowns

Image
We could use a surprise sense of humor!  Yes, especially on the wide problematic fields of Agriculture. There was this news that some high PH government officials wanted to probe Vice President Leni Robredo for “competing against” PH agencies in providing much-needed assistances during this coronavirus lockdown, and Marigs Laririt shared a picture-story on Facebook quoting Ms Leni as saying, “I didn’t know it was competition. I didn’t see any competitors!” Ms Marigs says, “Ay, parang friends ko kung sumagot si Mam.” (Ay, with Mam, it’s just like my friends answering back.) That is a two-handed backslap, and you can imagine the lady laughing! She is the humor-monger; they are the clowns. Today is Friday, 03 April 2020 and in one account ( Wikipedia ), Friday the 3 rd of April was crucifixion of Jesus and his crowning of thorns [1] . (images: Crown of Thorns [2]  from St Anthony Messenger , 1 st clown [3]  from The Guardian , 2 nd clown [4]  from Shutterstock ) About the living clowns I
Read more

“Natural Farming” – Aggie Journalists, We Must Be Careful With The Terms We Use!

Image
Look at the contrasting images: Which one is correct in claiming what is being practiced is “natural farming”? Top Image: This one accompanies the Anonymous WWF-Philippines story, “Mindanao Farmers Start Off the Year with Natural Farming Systems Technology” published online December 2019 [1] . The World Wide Fund, WWF, is a very credible international source of knowledge on conservation, right? Not this time. Very clearly, you can see the white plastic mulch covering the furrows and bare soil in-between them. Mr or Ms Anonymous, the plastic mulch is not natural. The soil not covered in-between furrows is not natural. So much soil bare, not natural, allowing so much natural water wasted because it had evaporated from the unprotected, hot soil surface! That is not conservation; that is not natural. The term “natural” is used here very carelessly . Aggie journalists, wake up! How come I noticed all that immediately when I saw the photograph? Because I learned my organic farming more t
Read more