IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Department of Science and Technology (DoST) recently launched an umbrella program which seeks to provide farmers easier access to information in agriculture, forestry and natural resources (AFNR) using the short message service (SMS) technology.

In an interview with Manila Bulletin, DoST Secretary Estrella Alabastro said that the program, dubbed "Techno — Gabay," enables the "dissemination of information and technologies to farmers."

Alabastro said the program which is under the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD -DoST), was funded by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) through the e-Government fund while the SMS system is part of the e - Consortia and e - Farm components of the K-Agrinet (Knowledge Networking Towards Enterprising Agricultural Communities) Program of PCARRD.

"One of the activities launched was providing cellphones to farmers, at least in some of the FITS (Farmers Information and Technology Services) centers, and encouraging them to access PCARRD. They can text (their questions) and within 24 hours, PCARRD will respond," said Alabastro.

This is similar to PAGASA’s PICWIN (Philippine Interactive Climate Weather and Information Network) that enables the public to access weather information via SMS.

Alabastro said the cellular phones had been entrusted to "farmer scientists" or farmers who maintain ‘demonstration farms’ where other farmers can contact PCARRD for their questions.

Autor: (Madel R. Sabater)

Quelle: The Manila Bulletin, 14.02.2006