CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is set to train about 90 Department of Education (DepEd) agriculture teachers from across the country on rice production.
To be held at the PhilRice Central Experiment Station in the Science City of Munoz, the five-day training is focused on rice morphology and growth stages; farm machinery operations; palay check system; nutrient, pest, water and harvest management; and hands-on practicum.
“Agriculture is one of the learning areas under the Technical-Vocational Livelihood Track that covers specializations such as Agricultural Crop Production and Organic Agriculture. These are highly responsive to the increasing demand of industries for agriculture workers, aiming to breed a new blood of young farmers to replace the aging population of agriculture workers and will soon take part in the economic growth and development of the country,” DepEd Regional Director Beatriz G. Torno said.
“As sustainable rice production remains one of the critical activities that the government is now focusing on, DepEd seeks to actively engage the agriculture teachers in developing among the young farmers with relevant skills and competencies and technology on rice farming. Further, given the right technology on rice farming, teachers shall be able to bring back the interest and love for agriculture among our students,” Torno added.
In recent years, a number of agriculture teachers have been the recipients of the training programs on Infomediary and Climate Smart Agriculture. These forms of interventions contributed to better teaching farming practices that led to sustainable agriculture.
The training shall be held in two clusters on November 12-16 and November 19-23.
Teacher-participants include agriculture teachers with specialization either in agricultural crop production or organic agriculture from Strengthened Technical Vocational Education Program secondary schools.