DILIMAN, Quezon City—The Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) re-defines its approach in training agriculture extension workers (AEWs) as it adopts the “new extensionist” concept of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) in the design and development of its curriculum offerings.
When I was in my junior year in college, my professor asked us to submit a some-sort-of-canned output for our final presentation in our Radio and TV class. With scarce resources where gadgets and home-studios were once a luxury (especially in the ’90s), we end up recording our canned project to government-owned studios, careful not to overuse nor damage the reel-to-reel audiotape for we were allowed to record using their equipment for free.
SAN MATEO, Isabela – The Agricultural Training Institute - Regional Training Center II (ATI-RTC II) resumes its first batch of Training of Trainers (TOT) on the Production of High-Quality Inbred Rice and Seeds, and Farm Mechanization under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).
The five-day training, scheduled on June 22-26, 2020 at the ATI-RTC II complex, takes off from the first part of the TOT held last March 9 to 14 which was temporarily postponed due to COVID-19 lockdown measures.
Empty chairs
Silent hallways
Clean office desks
These are what would come to greet you should you be able to walk past the strict security at the Visayas State University's main gate and visit the ATI RTC 8 office. From the usual office conundrum of whirring printers and glaring laptop and desktop monitors, the silence is something for the books. You can now hear the birds chirp!
All these belie the true nature of what ATI is actually doing.
Cooperators of Learning Sites for Agriculture (LSAs) and Extension Service Providers (ESPs) of the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) are cultivating seeds of compassion as they help their communities in their own ways during the global pandemic.
Since the alarming spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country, the whole of Luzon, including the entire Metro Manila, and some parts of Visayas and Mindanao have been placed in an Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ).
As dawn breaks, amidst the pounding rain, my Boss (fondly called Doc Lit) and I stepped in the waiting van that will take us to the lair of the 4 rebel commanders who have returned to the folds of law: Kumander Ismael, Kumander Benjie, Kumander Saidumar and Kumander Limbona. We are going there to assess their farms which ATI is funding as a Learning site for organic production of rice and vegetables. As if by coincidence, we never informed our wives of our destination for the place is known as a “no man's land”.
| Extension services continue to evolve. With the challenges that extension workers and farmers face, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) continues to explore various strategies to improve its efforts as the extension and training arm of the Department of Agriculture. In over 30 years, the ATI has celebrated various successes and learned from the lessons during hard times. Nonetheless, we are proud to be standing the test of time through the support of our partners and the clientele themselves. This is the ATI Today, more committed to bring you extension services beyond boundaries. |
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