More technology-driven measures needed in agriculture

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Maize Federation Inc. (PhilMaize) is pushing for a universal baseline for agriculture, in place of the government’s Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) and the use of digital technology to improve the development and forecasting for the long-neglected sector.

The agriculture sector needs data driven decision-making starting with a universal baseline, PhilMaize chairman Rodrico Bioco said at the Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. (PCAFI) briefing last week.

“What we want to have is a system that is measurable, verifiable and connected…Our initial target is come up with a universal baseline for agriculture. It is something that is a missing link for all these years,” Bioco said.

The RSBSA is a registry of farmers, fisherfolk, and farm laborers that serves as a targeting mechanism for the identification of beneficiaries for different agriculture-related programs and services of the government.

“That is being used by the DA as basis for the programs at assistance,” DA Assistant Secretary for consumer and political affairs and spokesperson Kristine Evangelista said earlier.

The DA has been urging farmers and fishermen to register under the RSBSA so they can avail themselves of interventions and support provided by the government.

However, PhilMaize’s Bioco referred to it as a fake registry given “there are so many controversies behind RSBSA.”

“We forwarded our suggestions to scrap RSBSA and come up with evidence-based data driven system. What we’ve been advocating is a list of farms starting with our cultivated parcels,” he said.

Apart from having a universal baseline, PhilMaize is pushing to digitalize the agriculture sector using the Geographic Information System to make data measurable and verifiable for forecasting.

Bioco said the DA’s rice and corn outlook is mostly anecdotal and unreliable.

“To enable this, we need to take advantage of satellite technology…Overlay this with PAGASA data, so we can also produce a basic forecasting for the annual yields natin for crops,” he said.

Combined, the agriculture sector can now have advanced monitoring and forecasting using artificial intelligence and ML or machine learning, the group said.

“What we try to envision apart from baselining, farm registry and weather forecast, we have to endeavor regular training data for our forecasting models,” Bioco said.

“This system using satellite imagery can see ground data, such as the stand of crops and reflectants, in a specific targeted areas for study. Then we can start with a two-year overlay then we can automate with more precision to improve monitoring and forecasting with precision,” he said.

PhilMaize push is part of President Marcos’ call to the private sector to aid in the digitization of the country’s food systems.

Last month, the President said his administration would institutionalize the Department of Science and Technology’s digital platform Sarai that would provide agricultural stakeholders with site-specific crop advisories based on data gathered from the Diwata micro-satellite.

Through the DOST program, farmers and fisherfolk will be able to access real-time and updated information on farm conditions, including weather outlook, drought and flooding forecasting, disease detection and infestation.

“Integrate all of this data with NAMRIA (National Mapping And Resource Information Authority), DOST, DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) and all other agencies like Pagasa to come up with a digitized national food balance sheet together with the import data to calibrate ang actual ground data,” Bioco said.