There is hope in palay farming

MANILA – Many young boys and girls– some of them still pursuing high school or tech-voc (technical-vocational) courses – have been religiously attending training courses under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) in private farm schools accredited by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

For a long while, farming was said to have reached its deadend– with children of old farmers preferring to go to the urban centers to pursue work in construction and other blue collar jobs, rather than toil the soil and risk exposure to harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides that their elders did.

They viewed farming as an unattractive calling as farmers were regarded as unlettered and unclean. The graduates were urged to apply the new skills and scale them to their neighbors and relatives so that such technologies and skills won’t go to waste.

But in recent years, there have been increasing numbers of youngsters interested in farming that is based on science and technology. Their eyes had been opened wide to TESDA vocational scholarships for farmers (that included personal allowances which they could otherwise not have earned) and the expanded training programs of the Department of Agriculture, funded by the RCEF program.

There is, after all, hope in palay farming, which is the backbone of the Philippine economy, to flourish in our country.

In one such school, the Myriad Farms Agribusiness Skills Training and Assessment Center in Guimba, Nueva Ecija, over 50 farmers “graduated” last Sept. 7 from their 14 weekend sessions with clearly half of them young boys and girls who took interest in palay farming from their parents, relatives and neighbors.

The TESDA training program’s theme is “Strengthening