The Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority (TESDA) will soon be building farm schools nationwide in
a bid to revive the farming industry and help uplift the lives of farmers and
fishers in the country.
In a statement, TESDA Director
General, Secretary Guiling “Gene” Mamondiong said that the plan to build farm
schools aims to provide “scholarship grants to the farmers and fisherfolks,
their families and relatives, extension workers and facilitators and trainers
to assist the farm owners in building the capability and capacity of their
farms thus increase productivity.”
“The concept of the farm schools is
based on the Farm Field Schools (FFS) developed by the UN Food Agriculture
Organization (FAO) to help farmers become competitive and seize advantage of
the opportunities in the market by operating their farms efficiently and
profitably,” he said.
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According to TESDA, a recent study
showed that a farmer who owns 1.5 hectares of land would only earn P2,300 a
month.
With this, Mamondiong said that the
amount “is not sufficient for a farmer who raises a family.”
In effect, the TESDA Chief said
that children of farmers “do not want to go into farming anymore because of the
small earning” in the said industries.
The Department of
Agriculture-Agriculture Training Institute (DA-ATI) and the Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR) will be helping TESDA in finding locations where the farm
schools will be built.
“I already ordered the Regional and
Provincial Directors of TESDA to inform their localities about the future farm
schools and enlist in this program,” Mamondiong said.
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