Mr. Darwin Flores, Head for Community Partnerships - Smart Communications encourages farmers to maximize the use of smartphone in accessing information & technologies in farming.
LOS ANGELES, Butuan City - It's never too late to learn. This is what the farmers from RTRomualdez realized after attending the 2nd batch of Knowledge Sharing and Learning on Digital Farmers Program (DFP) 101 at the ATI - Regional Training Center 13 last November 28, 2019. They were amazed that in this day and age, they could still learn some basic features of smartphone which they only used for SMS and calls.
Ms. Jocelyn A. Bayona, Training Specialist III of ATI-RTC graced the opening program of the 2nd batch of DFP. Mr. Darwin Flores , head for Community Partnerships-Smart Communications mentioned that smartphones are good sources of information and technology that can be very helpful for farmers.
Ms. Kim Namocatcat of Smart Communications introduced some tips on phonetography and videography. During the seminar, they explored various applications as source of information and technologies in farming. The farmers were also taught that social media platforms can also be used to promote and sell their agricultural products. Mr. Fil Victor A. Babanto presented and discussed the different ICT tools available for the farmers such as MOET application, Rice Doctor , Pinoy Rice Knowledge Bank, Farmers Contact Center, e-extension among others where they can access information, production techniques and recommendation
Along the learning journey, the farmers were partnered with selected youth particularly in producing a sample video as their output. "I never thought that smart phones can be used to tell stories and best practices of our farmers through the power director application, " says Mark Sampuang, one of the youth-participants from Poblacion 2. Mr. Jay Jay Orense of Probe Media Foundation guided them in video production through Power Director app. He shared some tips in telling a story, elements of video as well as the basics on video editing.
Each pair was able to produce a video as their output and was presented before the group.
The Digital Farmers Program (DFP) is an exploratory project between the Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Training Institute and SMART Communications, Inc. which aims to advance the local industry’s adoption of more innovative forms of technology in farming.