PAGADIAN CITY – Eighty five college
students from JH Cerilles College in the campuses of Midsalip and Sominot,
Zamboanga del Sur conducted recently an educational tour at Saniel Integrated
Farm Technological Business School, Inc., in San Isidro, Mahayag, Zamboanga del
Sur to get first hand information on organic farming.
Technical Education and Skills Development
Authority (TESDA) Provincial Director Eulalio Lumactod said the tour was part
of the cash for training project (C4TP) of the Technical Education Skills and
Development Authority (TESDA) and Department of Social Work and Development
(DSWD).
The C4TP was implemented by the
government to provide sustainable intervention to improve the condition of disadvantaged youth and
empower them through skills training and assistance towards gainful employment
and entrepreneurial activities,
Lumactod said the project aims to prepare the
youth for possible employment in targeted communities and provide with the
needed exposure to prepare them for gainful occupation.
Lumactod disclosed that these students were part
of the 939 TESDA scholars in the province who underwent a month-long training
on organic farming. “After they have completed the training, a certificate and
tool kit worth P1,200 each will be awarded to them,” he said.
Meanwhile, Midsalip Municipal Social Welfare and
Development Officer Thelma Dolien said the scholars were given hands-on
training on organic farming to teach their parent-farmers to help bring back
the fertile soil with the use of organic fertilizers, thus improving the lives
of farmers with this technology.
Dolien thanked the government for giving the
students the opportunity to learn organic agriculture saying that nowadays, “it
is very rare to find students taking up agriculture as their career.”
The scholars, Dolien said, were taught by the
farm owner and outstanding farmer, Rogelio Saniel, to do different farming
activities like planting trees, gardening, vermicomposting, animal dispersal
and others.
Dolien said the approach used in the training was
70 percent field work and 30 percent lecture. (PIA9)