The Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture or AMIA Program is one of the Key Strategies under the ONE DA Framework. Among the main focus of the AMIA Program is conducting regional and provincial climate risk and vulnerability assessments to identify proactive measures in adapting to changing climate and the hazards that it brings.
Its main approach is the establishment of the AMIA Village to serve as a lighthouse for adaptation and mitigation actions. Now, DA is pursuing to expand and use AMIA villages as building blocks of farm and fisheries clustering and consolidation and agro-industrialization in the whole country.
This writer spoke with Director Alicia G. Ilaga of the Climate-Resilient Agriculture Office (CRAO) to tell us more about the program.
How does the CRAO integrate ICT in climate change adaptation and mitigation amidst the pandemic?
Good thing that even before the pandemic, we already set up our Information and Communications Technology (ICT) capability, making available our range of products, services, and tools to reach out to our focused groups. Hence, migrating to digital platforms is not totally new to us.
We also migrated to digital tools like the virtual videoconferencing platform to conduct our training activities and our recently launched mentoring sessions.
The latter aim to equip our Focals in establishing and expanding AMIA Villages in consideration of the constraints brought about by the pandemic. Even our partnership launching was likewise transferred virtually.
Going back, I suppose it is more challenging for our regional counterparts as their functions essentially entail physical engagements, and there are activities that cannot be facilitated online.
From time to time, they still do face-to-face interactions under strict compliance with the relevant IATF Omnibus Guidelines. The limitations from these are resolved to an extent by strengthening their available ICT tools.
Imagine that all of these pandemic concerns have climate change as a backdrop. We know that by itself, climate change is dynamic and has progressive concerns, hence, this inevitably adds up to the complexity of the contemporary matters relative to the pandemic which our AMIA Program is facing.
How much progress has CRAO made over the years in transforming local resilience
in the community?
As of March 2021, there are already 96 AMIA Villages nationwide since the implementation in 2018. There are AMIA Villages in eight regions now ready for enterprise-development; like in Region 1 for diversified cropping, Region 2 for corn-based enterprise, and Region 10 for corn production with duck production (balut) as anchor, among others. We aim that we facilitate transformation through AMIA CREATE that carries our leveled-up vision which is Climate-Resilient Agri-Fishery Technology-Based Enterprises. In AMIA CREATE, ICT has an indispensable role in facilitating the access of the beneficiaries to climate information and technology toward climate resiliency.
During the height of the pandemic, in 2020, there were only 77 AMIA Villages wherein some areas were established in partnership with the Rice Watch Action Network. It was remarkable that despite the pandemic-related hurdles, there is considerable growth in the number of installed AMIA Villages. This increase is a testament that we have responded well in this new normal.
In your opinion, how ready are we in the world of digital agriculture toward achieving the DA’s climate change agenda?
When you go to the ground, the situation differs. Let me use the terminologies from the Diffusion of Innovations Theory that provides a spectrum of responses to provision of technology since it describes the same on the ground. There are communities that are adopters; some are early adopters, some early majority, some late majority; unfortunately, some are laggards. I cannot give you concrete statistics on that but that is observable on the ground. This situation can be explained by many factors – from economic reasons (lack of budget for sophisticated ICT) to personal (hesitations to use FB, fears of using mobile phones, and self-assessed low knowledge and skills). Speaking from our experience, it is not just the government at play in deciding whether we move forward with our ICT or not, it is also a personal enterprise – a deliberate, empowered choice of the farmers, LGUs, and other groups. And we respect and recognize the dynamics.
In relation to this, the answer is we, at the government, are ready. In fact, it has long been there as far as the AMIA products, tools, and services are concerned. But it is equally important to look at the other end of the spectrum, which is the readiness of
the people on the ground. To address their readiness is also a concern for us in the same way that to sustain the digital-ready capacity of the adopters is our thrust.
Future ICT plan to empower communities?
In the near future, we envision the farming communities as empowered when they practice CRA as a lifestyle, and the other AMIA tools, and products are part of their basic decision-making tools. In other words, they are already familiar with accessing them and skilled in interpreting the technical data.
Even if just few of the farmers become empowered, it is already a sustainable community since they are already champions in knowledge-sharing, equipping, and advocating CRA with other local farmers. Hence, we intend to be purposive in equipping the farmers as champions. If this vision will happen, we expect that they can also raise up farmer champions within their group, especially the younger farmers. This then ensures the sustainability of the skills needed to be resilient with evolving agriculture, especially as affected by climate change.
They say that the name of the future ICT in the agriculture sector is precision agriculture where there is the integration of robots, moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology. This can be a far future for us. Although some of these tools are being utilized now by the technical experts, farmers are still dependent on simplified data so the products of these tools can be meaningful to them.
