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The Department of Agriculture (DA) said it would push the digitization of the country’s agricultural sector under the “new normal” to achieve its goals of reducing poverty and achieving food security.
The Secretary of Agriculture, William D. Dar, said at the recent virtual meeting of the 35th Regional Conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for Asia and the Pacific (APRC35) that it is important to teach Farm families to capitalize on digital farming to increase their productivity and income. .
“It is important that we continuously empower vulnerable groups – small farmers, fishermen, rural women, youth, indigenous communities and agricultural families, in general – by providing them with the necessary technical, commercial and financial support, especially in the midst of the Covid -19 pandemic”, Dar said.
“Now, more than ever, we must reinforce this by teaching farm families to take advantage of digital or data-driven farming to further increase their productivity and income,” added Dar, who was elected vice president of APRC35.
FAO regional conferences play an important role in governance for policy coherence for regional development; discussion of global priorities with regard to the region; provide input to the Council and Conference on FAO priorities and discuss issues such as Covid-19 and intra-regional trade and investment, according to the DA.
Dar said during the meeting that DA is “accelerating” the development of a digital roadmap for the agricultural sector to promote and integrate precision agriculture and digital technology into local agricultural practices.
“Our goal is to integrate digital technologies into the food value chain and logistics, benefiting both producers and consumers,” said Dar.
The DA said its goal is to have “real-time access to ICT-driven crop production and risk and damage assessment information with the use of drones and a dynamic cultivation schedule.”
The district attorney revealed that he recently installed a dashboard in Dar’s office, where the secretary has real-time and up-to-date critical information on policy making available to her, which is updated daily.
This information includes farmer registration, farm machinery distribution and farm-to-market road construction, among other infrastructure initiatives and major DAs, according to DA.
The DA said it is also seeking partnerships with the private sector, civil society, and international research institutions to digitize Philippine agriculture.
