386 infotech centers set up nationwide

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna – From Batanes to Basilan.

This is how extensive 386 Farmers’ Information and Technology Services (FITS) centers have been established across the length and breadth of the archipelago over the past decade.

The FITS program was crafted by the Los Baños-based Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (DOST-PCARRD) to bring information and technologies in agriculture and natural resources within the reach of farmers, entrepreneurs, traders, processors and other stakeholders in ANR.

The concept of FITS is to house under one roof the information, communication and technology (ICT) services in specific sites that cater to the needs of farmers and other information users, said PCARRD, currently headed by Executive Director Patricio Faylon.

The FITS center provides services such as production and dissemination of information, education, and communication materials, exhibit of new technologies, technology information in print, video tapes and database formats, access to global information via the Internet and sale of reference information materials. It also facilitates the availability of planting materials and animal stocks.

Since the program was launched in Lamut, Ifugao, on Dec. 2, 1997, 386 FITS centers have been set up across the country. Dr. Bessie Burgos, director of PCARRD’s Technology Outreach Program Division (TOPD), told this writer in an interview.

Burgos said these one-stop shop information centers are based in, or hosted by local government units (67 percent), state colleges and universities (SCUs) (19 percent), Department of Agriculture (DA) (16 percent), DOST provincial S&T centers, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and non-government organizations.

Over the past decade, the FITS program has evolved into the main component of the Techno Gabay Program (TGP), PCARRD’s banner program on technology transfer and S&D utilization.

The other TGP components are the Farmers-Scientist Bureau (FSB) or magsasaka-siyentista.

Strongly supportive of the FITS program, FSB is a pool of successful model farmers/farmers-leaders whose farms are showcases of “best practices.” The farmer-scientists share their technologies and indigenous practices with other farmers.