TAAL, Batangas – A total of twelve (12) municipalities in the province participated during the Phase 1 - Consultation Workshop on the Establishment of the Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) Community Project Batch 2 held from March 7 to 9, 2018 at Taal Maranan Farmville, Taal, Batangas. These municipalities are identified to have climate change high hazards in agriculture and fisheries with reference to the AMIA Hazard map.
However, openness and cooperation are among the major principles in climate change adaptation strategies. Stakeholder integration and participation is significant so that science-based and policy-based approaches in climate change can be pursued. Thus, this activity, involving other pillars of extension as one of the stakeholders in the provision of climate-smart livelihood to a selected community is important to ensure a parallel strategy on its implementation towards the project’s sustainability. Partners agencies tapped includes Office of the Provincial Agriculturist of Batangas, Department of Agriculture RFO Calabarzon-APCO Batangas and Batangas State University.

From the consultation and vulnerability assessments, three municipalities participated in the baseline information activity namely, Balete, Malvar and Calatagan, Batangas. A series of quantitative data gathering that involved ground-truth surveys provided the opportunity to verify the validity, nature and location of any of the putative borders between ground-types, segments or habitats that have been determined prior to the survey, and this requires some form of observational sampling. A questionnaire provided will be tapped as instrument in baseline information. Secondary data were also gathered in support to the climate change readiness of the participating barangays.

The final site for the expanding CRA project in the province is in Barangay Balitoc, Calatagan, Batangas. Phase 2 - Convergence Initiatives for Stakeholders which involves validation of information gathered from Phase 1 and conduct of PRRA for the establishment of needs and concerns of the community will be conducted on March 26-28, 2018.