Rep. Rico urges grads: Go agri-entrepreneur

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By JUNE S. BLANCO

REP. Erico Aumentado (2nd District, Bohol) has urged agriculture graduates to pursue entrepreneurship dreams over employment – push massive production over test tubes and petri dishes experiments in fancy laboratories.

This, Aumentado explained, is the essence of House Bill 6387 or The Agriculture Entrepreneurship Act of 2011 he is introducing.

In his explanatory note, the solon said manpower development programs in the agricultural sector have been focused primarily on technologists and scientists. Every year, universities and colleges in the country produce sizable numbers of graduates in agriculture-related courses.

Many of these graduates find work in government agencies, companies engaged in agriculture, but unfortunately a good number do not end up working in agri-related jobs.

Because of this bias, he said, few graduates have ventured into the business of farming or agricultural (or agri) entrepreneurship, contributing to the historical underperformance of Philippine agriculture and the transformation of the country from an agricultural exporter into a major importer of agricultural products. He said the Philippines is already the largest importer of rice in the world.

Many see agriculture as less of a profession or a business enterprise than a means to daily subsistence, he observed, often equated with poverty and underprivileged status. Many children of farmers prefer education in the professions or work in the factories or in the service sector in large urban areas to farming, he explained.

Aumentado said there have been initiatives to address the need for agricultural entrepreneurship training programs. Family Farm Schools or Rural Development Schools have been established in various parts of the country since 1988 based on the original French model.  These provide boys and girls with vital actual experience in agricultural operations and farm management during the formative high school years.

This concept, he said, can be extended to the post-secondary and collegiate level. In 1994, Congress enacted Republic Act 7686 or The Dual Training System Act of 1994 that institutionalized the dual training system, fusing technical and vocational education with actual training. This system has since produced thousands of graduates who have given technical and vocational education an impetus into the industrial, manufacturing, and service sectors.

The new approach to education in agriculture espoused in the bill takes inspiration from RA 7686. The solon said the country will train men and women as agriculture entrepreneurs, with actual or “hands on” experience in farming business, who would consider agriculture as an entrepreneurial activity.

This can be accomplished through a ladderized system of agricultural education and training that begins from the secondary level especially in the proposed Senior High Schools under the K+12 program.

He emphasized that the bill does not seek to create new government agencies at a time when there is renewed thrust to streamline the bureaucracy. It will not entail large appropriations either, he added.

Instead, it empowers the Department of Agriculture, through the Agricultural Training Institute, to pursue the plans, goals and objectives of the bill, in partnership with the private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – a Private Public Partnership for manpower development for the agriculture sector.

Aumentado envisions an Agricultural Manpower Education and Entrepreneurship System (AMEES) that will assume a leadership role in secondary and tertiary level agricultural and entrepreneurship education.