Text by: Kimberly Villamero
Maayong adlaw!
I am Kim, a 19-year old girl from Central Mindanao University (CMU) and presently having my internship at Philippine Rice Research Institute in The Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. I am currently taking up Bachelor of Science in Development Communication and it really excites me to work with other fellow development communicators!
In my fourth week of internship, I was tasked to be a part of the Climate-smart Agriculture training with the DepEd techers from May 4-8. It was part of the Infomediary campaign that aims to train school teachers on how to effectively promote agriculture especially on the best-practices on rice farming and understanding the effects of climate change in rice production.
Additionally, the campaign aims to bring back the love for rice farming among youth and in turn, consider agriculture as a choice for their college course.
The teachers who participated in the training came from different regions in the country. Luckily, teaching is one of the professions I love, so I imagined the week to be a fun-filled training because I will have the chance to work with them in the training.
Let me share you a glimpse of our activities: It was Wednesday, the third day of training, and we had a trip! Can you guess where? It was a farm in Laur, Nueva Ecija!
Although it was a two-hour travel to the farm, it was an enjoyable one – we shared funny stories with the teachers during the travel. What made it more exciting is the thought that the farm in Laur was actually near the famous Sierra Madre!
The farm is owned by Mr. Gerardo Esteban. It is small, but amazingly, Mr. Esteban told us that he earns a lot from his farm. He told us his secret: Integrated farming. It means, to produce high quality food, feed, fibre and renewable energy by using resources such as soil, water, and air to farm sustainably and with as little polluting inputs as possible. Also great in an integrated system, as livestock and crops are produced within a coordinated framework, like waste products of one component will serve as a resource for the other.
Visiting Mr. Esteban’s farm is a very good opportunity to know the advantages of integrated farming. With the knowledge we gained from the trip, the teachers can now share the valuable information to their students, and at the same time, I am also sharing these information to my family.
It was raining when we left the place. I can feel the cold weather outside as we rode the XLT on our way back to PhilRIce. The trip was one of the most memorable involvements I have experienced since I started my internship in PhilRice. Having gained new knowledge regarding farming, the experience will certainly help me make it through this intership in PhilRice, but more so when I step out of the institute and face the real world.