| LAHI convergence project now on its gear |
| The ball has started to roll for the implementation of the “LAHI convergence for the development of agriculture, forestry, fishery and natural resources (AFFNR) technopreneur”, a project conducted by ILARRDEC under the program enhancing the demand of AFFNR graduates through S&T of the Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Agriculture Resources Research and Development (DOST-PCARRD). The LAHI convergence includes the LGUs and government agencies, which will finance fully or partly AFFNR scholarships particularly students coming from their respective localities; the Academe, which nourishes and sustains the motivation of the students to study and provide basic capital outlay for the EIGPs in terms of land, buildings, and vehicles; the Household/family, which provides support to their son/daughter in decision making and put up resource counterpart (financial, material, manpower) in the operation of the business venture; and the Industry and business sectors, which serve as good para-professional trainers (particularly the Magsasaka Siyentistas), and their project sites shall serve as deployment of students and trainees in their on the job/ supervised farming project/technology learning experience. These four shall converge to produce a self-employed or employer AFFNR technopreneur graduate. The five state universities and colleges in the region, which are member agencies of the consortium have conducted parallel inception and execution meetings cum workshops on the implementation of the project. Starting end of July, a series of training programs will be conducted to retool faculty and project staff , and to update student and graduate beneficiaries on the advances of the technology components of the project. With the assistance of the local government units in the provinces of region 1, graduates of AFFNR from the implementing SUC’s are now being recruited and screened for financial and technical assistance. The technologies involved in the project are income-generating projects with science and technology content. This includes e-kawayan business, lowland vegetable business, sea urchin and sea cucumber business, beef cattle fattening business, processed fish (tilapia and bangus) business and honey corn seedgrain and chichacorn business. These ventures shall serve as business models for the students. It is expected that through this endeavour, there will be an increased competitiveness of AFFNR courses, careers & profession relative to other courses, hence, increasing the number of enrolment, employment and engagement rates of graduates. (by L. Campano) |