By URIEL C. QUILINGUING
Contributing Editor

THE regional center head of the government’s Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) based in El Salvador City reiterated Tuesday the agency’s call for successful farmers to share time-honored farming techniques and technologies to the public, particularly the young.

ATI 10 regional training center director Lydia A. Echavez issued the appeal in a news conference at Harbor Lights Hotel in Cagayan de Oro while about a hundred farmers were in a day-long planning and assessment on agricultural extension services.

“Some keep the best practices to themselves, not willing for others to learn,” said Echavez, but commended those they have been certified as learning sites for agriculture (LSA), schools for practical agriculture (SPA) and private extension service providers (PESP).

For those engaged in livestock and poultry, bio-security issues were among the reasons why owners refuse to open their farms to visitors, especially due to African swine fever outbreak. 

In the last eight years, ATI has been certifying LSAs, elevating LSAs to SPAs, and been granting certifications to PESPs. But nine ALS have officially informed ATI 10 they wish their names would be delisted.

“This is due to old and for health reasons,” said the ATI 10 head even as she announced their central office has certified four new LSAs for Northern Mindanao, bringing  the list to 82. Aside from LSAs, the region has 14 SPAs and two PESPs, namely Bukidnon’s Greenminds and Semilya sa Kinabuhi.

She said that LSAs which are farms, from as small as over 200 square meters to over a hectare that practice applicable agricultural technologies, employing doable farming strategies and can be replicated in other areas serve as models for those who wish to farm not only for the produce but for money.

One of the ATI certified LSA is the square-foot gardening of former city police director Honorio S. Cervantes in barangay Pagatpat, this city, which is barely 250 sq. m. but the organic leafy vegetables that the urban garden has been producing could be found in wet markets of city’s malls. 

ATI 10, she said, welcomes senior high school students for their immersion in the farms as well as agriculture college students for on-the-job trainings.

Echavez said that duly certified LSAs can avail of ATI’s financial, technical (trainings, farm technologies and equipment) and registration (with Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and other government agencies) assistance services.

Financial assistance could be from P300,000 to as much as P1 million, particularly those that would granted under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF), as provided for under the Rice Tariffication Law (R.A. 11203).

“ATI can also facilitate the granting of interest-free loans,” said Echavez, adding that there have been youth organizations who have also been granted financial assistance.  

The news conference and annual planning and assessment for LSAs, SPAs and PESPs were among the ATI 33rd founding anniversary activities.