Farmers' call center project underway

CEBU, Philippines - Farmers all over the country would soon be able to immediately report any problem hounding their crops with the upcoming farmers’ call center project of the Information Technology Center for Agriculture and Fisheries (ITCAF) of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Gracelen Dagala, officer-in-charge of the Agriculture Commission (AgCom), said the ITCAF is now in the process of preparing the framework for this new facility, which takes advantage of new developments in information technology, especially the cellular phone.

“(This facility) will be a very great help to farmers all over the country, as this will enable them to inform (the DA) through text of any problem (in their respective locality),” she told The Freeman in an interview.

For example, a farmer can text or call the center if there is an outbreak in their areas so that the problem can easily be contained before it goes out of hand.

Dagala said the implementation of the farmers’ call center won’t be difficult anymore with the Nokia Data Gathering solution, which enables the collection and sharing of critical data anytime and anywhere in the country. The project is a partnership between the DA, Nokia and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines.

The main objective of the project is to link the farmers and their produce to the market where these are needed and to set the right prices of agricultural products.  

While the data gathering solution gathers data to link farmers to the market, the call center covers all concerns of the farmers.

The ITCAF is a department of the DA which formulates policies and guidelines in the design, acquisition, maintenance, use and disposal of IT. These are designed to guide all DA units or offices and stakeholders and key players in their related activities; formulate plans and strategies to keep DA’s IT resources current and up-to-date[L1] ; implement programs and projects toward fulfillment of DA’s IT vision and mission for the 21st century consistent with the government’s IT 21 vision and mission; and develop and manage the department’s basic information infrastructure, resources and processes, among others.