ENCOURAGING the younger generation to engage and enroll in farm schools will help the agricultural sector of the country to cultivate more abandoned agricultural land, a Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) official said.
During the weekly Kapehan sa Dabaw at The Annex of SM City Davao, Tesda National Technical Committee vice chairperson Francisco Jucar Jr. said one of the current focus of the Tesda is to develop farm schools in the country.
“If we encourage the younger generation to engage in farm schools and we can cultivate our abandoned lands, then of course that would greater impact,” Jucar said.
This supports the earlier statement of Tesda-Davao director Gaspar Gayona saying that while the agriculture sector of the country demands more workers than the other sectors, academic institutions offering agriculture-related studies are limited.
“If we can’t bring the farmers to schools, then let’s make their farms into schools. We train trainers, we bring them to the communities. We train the farmers in the communities to become trainers,” Gayona said in earlier statement.
“We are helping the government in promoting this use of farm schools. There are two methodologies: we have training centers that are really farm schools, while we also have an approach wherein existing farms will be made into agricultural laboratories. The farmers will be taught to facilitate especially in organic agriculture,” he added.
Jucar also said that in agriculture, there are still a lot of available technology and discoveries that need to be harnessed. He gave as an example the making of wood vinegar, which is actually a byproduct of making charcoal.
“This is what we miss out in the Philippines. This is what we lack – the repository of knowledge,” he said.