The collaboration is another initiative of the DA under its Agriculture Dialogue and Information Network Groups (ADING) Program “that aims to further strengthen and improve public trust and confidence in the Department.” Note: “Ading” in Ilocano means “younger sibling.” Now, not only the aim but the name is perfect – I am thinking of the 17-year old proposal of Mr Dar himself that he called “Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture” (OpAPA), which he advocated in 2003 when he was still Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) – with ADING and OpAPA 2021, we have a family of science knowledge banks with Mr Dar as father!
(“Open Learning” image[2] from Frugalmomeh.com)
Under the partnership agreement, the DA will provide funding of P1.5 million to each of the state universities and colleges (SUCs) for data and information gathering on, among other things, (1) impact of DA’s programs on target communities, and (2) technology utilization by farmers and fishers in every region.
The University of the Philippines through the National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG), through Project Team Leader Alex Brillantes, will lead the development of sampling design, research protocol, and data collection instruments that will be used by the SUCs in conducting their knowledge searches.
Separately thinking, once all the sets of data are in and processed into knowledge bits & pieces for Internet searches, in In my mind, OpAPA 2021 will answer all questions, English or Taglish, such as:
Which hybrid rice to plant? Where? How much? Whom to ask?
How do I save on expensive inputs: seeds, fertilizers, cultivation, spraying, harvesting, drying, marketing?
How can a cluster, association, cooperative help my farming?
Which vegetables, fruits, flowers are profitable to grow?
How can I farm if I don’t have enough money?
What do I do when I see a number of insects crawling on my rice plants?
What farm crops can be intercropped with a standing coconut grove?
I want to farm, but I don’t know anything about farming – where do I begin?
I fell in love with OpAPA the first time I saw her, sometime in 2003, when I was hired as a consultant for PhilRice. And I was so smitten that within a week or so, I wrote a book dedicated to bring her to life:
The Geography Of Knowledge. TGoK.
I still have an e_copy of that book, 198 pages, which I conceptualized and wrote all by myself. I submitted the whole manuscript to my direct boss – nameless here, forevermore – and nothing came out of it. I don’t think the PhilRice Executive Director ever saw it. Na-tigok!
With OpAPA 2021, Science with a development face should triumph in Philippine agriculture inclusive of the small farmers!@517
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