Korean agency helps put up agriculture villages

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Korea Partnership for Innovation of Agriculture (KOPIA) are eyeing to establish 10 pilot village projects aimed at raising vegetable output and farmers’ income after successfully completing the first one in Laguna.

The DA, through the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), and the KOPIA formally opened its Pilot Village Project on Protective Cultivation and Postharvest Management of Vegetables in Siniloan, Laguna on Sept. 5.

The project will benefit at least 100  farmers in Siniloan through the provision and promotion of greenhouses with drip irrigation systems, postharvest technologies, farm cultivators, and good agricultural practices.

The infrastructure development is a component of the Pilot Village Project funded by KOPIA and implemented by the BPI Los Baños National Crop Research, Development and Production Support Center (LBNCRDPSC).

As the project proponent and implementor, the LBNCRDPSC spearheaded the capacity building of farmers and extension workers and promoted the concepts of bayanihan (Filipino concept of community cooperation) and Saemul Undong (Korean for self-help and community development).

Following the initial success of the ongoing project as a model farm for Filipino rural communities, the KOPIA and BPI have agreed to develop a project proposal for funding by the South Korean government to scale up the project to 10 pilot villages in the areas covered by the five national centers of the BPI.

“KOPIA plays an important role as it works side by side with the local community. Its pilot villages are designed to improve the production through modern farming technology as well as knowledge transfer and cooperation on agricultural innovation and food security. Therefore, this success story in Siniloan can serve as a model for replication,” Republic of Korea Ambassador to the Philippines Sang-hwa Lee said.

KOPIA is an innovative Official Development Assistance (ODA) program of the Rural Development Administration (RDA), which is Korea’s largest agricultural research and development organization.

After Siniloan, the pilot village project will also be implemented in Lucban, Quezon and Zaragosa, Nueva Ecija to help raise the production and income levels of Filipino farmers.

It also provided vegetable production technology packages and technical assistance to empower the farmers in the pilot villages.

These projects are expected to improve the technical proficiencies of extension workers and farmers in the partner communities, increase the volume of vegetable production by 200 percent in the pilot communities, and increase in the income of participating farmers by 20 percent.

DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban said the technologies promoted by BPI and KOPIA through the project “promise outcomes that are both technically useful and economically rewarding.”

“By extension, what we learn from this endeavor establishes a mechanism whereby other local governments and farmer organizations can utilize the same technologies based on their terms. It is thus highly gratifying that so many – including national and local government executives and farmer leaders – are now ready to join with us in expanding these benefits nationwide,” he said.