This time,
we have 5 lessons in Extension (Ex): (1) grammar, (2) media, (3) digital
technology, (4) credit, and (5) options.
Wikipedia says
“School Of The Air[1]” I checked with my favorite dictionary, and yes, the grammatically correct
phrase is “of the air[2]” (TheFreeDictionary.com).
Radio & Internet As Media For Extension
I have been reading Carlson B Alelis’ feature,
“Unified School-On-Air, A ‘Beginning
Of Empowering Rice Farmers’[3]” (17 March 2021, PIA), an initiative of the Department of Agriculture (DA)
Region 6 launched in Iloilo City 16 March.
With my
background as a BS Agriculture graduate major in Agricultural Education, UP
'65, and with my own 40-year old “Theory of Communication for Development,” I can hardly imagine how any PH School Of
The Air can educate farmers on the “right smart technologies (that) will surely
empower them and make them competitive with (farmers in) other countries.” Radio
is limited, all sound and fury – try dramatizing “System of Rice
Intensification” via audio!
Internet. Yes,
“School-On-Lap” is best programming for aggie extension! Why do you have to
think of the farmer as old and/or uneducable?
(Upper image of “Cyber Extension[4]” from Tunza Eco Generation)
CREDIT GRAB
So now I am thinking of
the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC)
coming up with a budget of, say, P15 million, for the Agricultural Training
Institute (ATI) of the DA to create a digital Knowledge
Bank for training. I call it “CREDIT GRAB” – for “Community-Related Ecological
Development via Information Technology with Government Resources Aimed at
Agri-Business.” A farmer applying for any interest-free loan with ACPC must pass
CREDIT GRAB field training, or assessment, before s/he can be granted that loan.
This is to make sure that the loan applicant’s farming is more or less
guaranteed to be successful as it considers most if not all the technical &
resource knowledge options in
farming, from seed to spoon. CREDIT GRAB will also package a farmer’s course on
credit using quite a few of the credit success stories on record.
Farming Options
What about “PalayCheck?” Options is the digital
key. How will the training on farming options via CREDIT GRAB impact, say, irrigated
rice?
Fundamentally, the already-existing website Pinoy Rice Knowledge Bank says
PalayCheck “presents the best key technology and management practices as Key
Checks[5]” (Pinoyrice.com). So, PalayCheck is thinking
for the farmer, not the farmer thinking
for himself after studying his options in technologies and practices as may be
applied in his location!
Game: On his laptop, the farmer
has the right to press the Enter key where he thinks best!
Changer: Farming is not all rice; so, the CREDIT GRAB
Knowledge Bank must contain rice-based
farming systems (plural). Today, PalayCheck
continues to imprison the farmer with
a single outmoded rice technical framework and teach him not to
think more!@517
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