Yes, we can easily produce more agriculturists

The Philippines is an agricultural country, so they say.

But with the laggard contribution of agriculture to our GDP (declining from 8.5 percent to 8.1 percent), the continuous importation of rice (now the world’s largest importer), the political promise of P20 kilo rice and the pressure to now feed 116 million hungry mouths, it seems like agricultural modernization is becoming a mission impossible.

One of the sad findings of the 1997 Congressional Commission on Agriculture (AGRICOM), where I served as executive director, was that the Filipino farmer was getting very old. Estimates over the past decade was between 57-59 years old and policy makers have been scratching their heads on how to reverse this trend and convince more graduates to go to agriculture.

How do you do it? One challenge is how to make the curriculum more exciting so more students will enroll in agriculture and agriculture related courses.

After all, the bias against agriculture remains strong. Remember when we were chanting “planting rice is never fun” in high school?

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has reorganized its Technical Panel on Agriculture with stalwarts from the academe, industry and government, attracting no less than Chooks to Go founder Ronald Mascariñas and SEARCA director general Glen Gregorio. A new curriculum (CMO 23 series of 2021) was issued, emphasizing an outcome-based education aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

One problem that appears intractable is that while so many enroll, so many fail the licensure examination for agriculture (LEA).

In my visit to Sulu, I traveled with Sulu State College president Charisma Ututalum across Jolo, Indanan, Maimbung and Patikul, looking at how we can produce more agriculturists. As we walked in the SSC campus, I shockingly found out that in the island provinces of Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Basilan, the LEA passing rate in public universities was close to zero.

The reasons were simple – many of the faculty members teaching agriculture were licensed teachers but not licensed agriculturists. There were also no review centers in these areas. In the case of Sulu State College, the closest review center was in Zamboanga City and Dipolog City and the students could not afford the cost of review classes, travel and accommodation.

Studies also identified a serious mismatch of faculty members teaching a specific agriculture class (like an animal science major teaching courses on crop science) because nobody else was qualified.

I immediately called UP Los Baños Chancellor Dong Camacho and said you are already the top performing SUC for agriculture. You can justify your status as national university only if you are able to bring up the passing rate of other SUCs closer to your level.

And this is where UP Los Baños decided to exercise its public service responsibility and make a difference.

Under the leadership of College of Agriculture and Food Science dean Dong Angeles, UPLB, with CHED) funding, launched the ExcelLEArate Program, a review and strategy initiative to empower students for the Licensure Examination for Agriculturists (LEA) in July 2024 to improve passing rates and promote academic achievement among LEA examinees.

The program offered a free online review course for agriculture students in public universities that had the following characteristics: 1) very low LEA passing rate (compared to the national passing rate); 2) no review centers in their vicinity; 3) strong internet connectivity and 4) university officials committed to organize structure review classes on weekends.

More than 950 students (and unlicensed faculty members) attended the weekly review classes. The results in the November 2024 examinations showed that 11 of the 14 universities which participated improved their LEA performance. Some, like Sulu State College, Tawi Tawi Agricultural State College, Romblon State University and Capiz State University-Tapaz Campus, more than doubled their passing rate. Student-reviewees from Kalinga State University, Quirino State University and University of Eastern Philippines-Catubig also performed well.

But there are also some disturbing realities.

Close to half of the 954 students who registered for the program did not complete the sessions. The primary reasons cited were work-related conflicts (57.1 percent) and time management challenges (52.4 percent), as many participants struggled to balance job responsibilities and other commitments alongside the review. Only a small portion (9.5 percent) reported difficulty with the online learning format delivered via Zoom, showing that the digital platform is effective in supporting remote instruction.

Building on the successes of its first year, the program was relaunched this year with expanded reach. Starting last July 2025, the program now assists 40 public universities. The review will run for a total of 192 hours until September 2025. In addition to the review sessions, UPLB professors will visit the participating SUCs to assess areas for improvement in agriculture programs and explore how UPLB can provide further academic and institutional support.

The UPLB initiative is cost-effective, innovative and a simple solution to what many said was a complex problem. It shows that if our top public universities make a real effort to help the weaker institutions, real change can happen.

Now the question is – when will the other top performing UP colleges – fisheries, veterinary medicine, forestry, engineering – exercise their public service responsibilities and help other SUCs?

And when will other outstanding SUCs like West Visayas State University (nursing, teacher education), Philippine Normal University (teacher education), Mindanao State University and Iloilo State University of Fisheries, Science and Technology (fisheries) take on the challenge?