Digital farmer registry, food inventory eyed
PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Thursday sought to fast-track the digitalization of database of farmers and food balance sheet (FBS) to strengthen the country’s agricultural industry.
This developed after Marcos met with the Private Sector Advisory Council’s (PSAC) Agriculture Sector Group at Malacañan Palace in Manila, Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Cheloy Garafil said in a statement.
Garafil said Marcos welcomed the PSAC’s proposal to digitize the farmer registry and the FBS, as he acknowledged the need to update the processes and systems in the agriculture sector.
“Well, if we can [get] digitalization in place as quickly as possible…everyone needs it. So, what you need to do is you get the system in place, specific for the agriculture. Hopefully, it will become part eventually of the government system,” Marcos, as quoted by the PCO, told the members of PSAC’s Agriculture Sector Group.
To date, over 5.4 million farmers, farm workers and fisherfolk have registered under the national Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA).
Registration in RSBSA is voluntary. It is the basic requirement in availing of agri-fishery related government services, particularly for the programs and projects of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
The RSBSA has three main components: farmer and fisherfolk profiling, farm parcel georeferencing and the interventions monitoring system.
On the other hand, the FBS, compiled by the Philippine Statistics Authority, is an aggregated and analytical data set that presents a comprehensive picture of the pattern of a country’s food supply during a specified reference period.
The FBS provides estimates of per capita food available for human consumption in terms of quantity, calories, protein and fat contents. Philippine News Agency
