IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

In line with the government’s effort towards self-sufficiency, the country has maximized the benefit of modern communications technology. We have been called the "texting capital of the world’’ because of the millions of cellular phone users in the urban areas. The use of cellphones continues to spread in the country, especially among our agricultural producers under the Techno Gabay program of the Department of Science and Technology (DoST).

Under the program that was recently launched, the DoST seeks to provide farmers easier access to information in agriculture, forestry, and natural resources (AFNR) using short message service (SMS) or texting technology. The program is under the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD-DoST). It is funded by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) through the e-Government Fund. 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.

Farmers demonstration farms, called "farmer scientists’’ by the DoST constitute part of the Farmers Information and Technology Services (FITS) network. They have been given cellular phones to encourage them to bring their problems and other questions to PCARRD. For its part, PCARRD has promised to respond within 24 hours. The technology used is similar to another DoST system, PAGASA’s PICWIN (Philippine Interactive Climate Weather and Information Network) that enables the public to access weather information via SMS.

Information is critical in agricultural production, processing, and distribution and the DoST’s Techno Gabay program definitely ensures the availability of information to the country’s farmers to help food security or sufficiency for the country.

Quelle: The Manila Bulletin, 28.02.2006