Educators strive to make farming more appealing to the youth

MANILA, Philippines—At a time when college students would rather become nurses, chefs and seafarers, the Commission on Higher Education and the antipoverty NGO Gawad Kalinga have partnered to give agriculture a makeover and attract more students to the rather unpopular course.

The CHEd and GK on Friday launched the Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Project, a five-year program that aims to establish “village universities” as the new breeding ground for agri-entrepreneurs and empower communities through additional income generation.

The project will “establish a model agri-ecological tourism farm that will showcase appropriate and viable agricultural technologies” and also provide a livelihood for family beneficiaries, the CHEd and GK said in an agreement signed Friday.

In essence, the project hopes for students to learn by doing—a school experience that “translates classroom theories into real businesses.”

“This agreement with GK, they’re trying to make agriculture attractive to students through a certain amount of entrepreneurship. So you work with the land, in agriculture, but you develop a business,” CHEd chair Pat Licuanan told the Inquirer.

“Students will be studying and earning, because they’ll be doing things in the field that are earning them money,” she said.

Nine agri-oriented state colleges and universities have signed up for the project—Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University and Mariano Marcos State University in Region I; Isabela State University in Region II; Aurora State College of Technology, Bulacan Agriculture State College, Central Luzon State University, Pampanga Agricultural College and Tarlac College of Agriculture in Region III; and Benguet State University in the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Using locally abundant resources, each university would be required to raise livestock, cultivate endemic crops and develop highly viable products such as virgin coconut oil, vegetables, mushrooms, peanuts, bananas, ube, cut flowers, salted eggs, tilapia and goats.

Communities may also take part in the project by contributing farm labor, thus earning money for themselves from the yield.

“State universities and colleges have some of the technical expertise. All of them have their own products. And if you match that with people who are good with marketing and so forth, you will have a viable business,” said Licuanan.

According to the agreement, the CHEd will fund the first year of the project, estimated at P400,000 per university, to cover farm implements, personnel services, transportation, communication and other incidentals.

GK, the same organization that has built homes for the poor using their sweat equity, will supervise farm operations and identify family beneficiaries.

Licuanan said agriculture courses were among the courses with low enrollment, with students preferring trendier majors like nursing, hotel and restaurant management, information technology and maritime studies.

Courses in agriculture, fisheries and science and technology are among the “undersubscribed” courses in higher education institutions, said the CHEd chair.

“So much of it (college courses) is being trendy. Maybe being on the farm isn’t trendy, but there’s a spin that you could put on farming really, and we’re trying to make it entrepreneurship. There must be ways of making farming more attractive,” Licuanan said. –Tarra Quismundo, Philippine Daily Inquirer