Food security threatened

Due to low agri course enrollment

Enrollment in agriculture courses in the country’s premier agriculture university has significantly dwindled in the past three decades, indicating that farming is becoming an unappealing career choice for the Filipino youth.

Educators believe this poses a serious threat to the country’s agricultural labor force and eventually to food security.

These were among the findings in the recently-concluded 1st National Agritourism Research Conference held at the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños campus. The conference was organized by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and the Asian Institute of Tourism of UP Diliman to discuss the current status of agritourism development in the country.

Dr. Jesusita Coladilla, of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) School of Environmental Science and Management (SESAM) said less than one in 10 students in the university are enrolled in an agriculture degree course.

In the past 30 years, enrollment in agriculture courses steadily declined from 51 percent of the total students enrolled in 1980 to 43 percent in 1995. As of this year, only 4.7 percent of the population of students in the university are enrolled in the course major.

“The trend is similar in other higher education institutes offering BS Agriculture programs, an indication that agriculture is becoming the least appealing career choice,” said Coladilla. “Even a typical farmer would not advise his children to get into an agricultural career.”

She believes the declining interest in agricultural studies among the youth would lead to shortage of capable professionals in the agriculture sector, thus endangering the country’s food supply especially at a time when the government is pursuing a roadmap for stopping the importation of food staples by 2016.

“It will undoubtedly pose serious threat in the country’s agricultural labor force and the country’s food security,” said Coladilla.

Because of this, several agricultural universities are now revising their program to keep up with the current needs of students.

“Some agricultural universities are now revising their program to make it more relevant,” Coladilla said. “From laboratory experiential learning they are getting into out-of- the-classroom and into-thefi eld agricultural education.”

This is an immediate intervention. Coladilla said children could be enticed, at an early age to pursue a degree in agriculture by exposing them to prosperous farms.

“Promoting agritourism could make children have a feel of a thriving business and encourage enrollment in agriculture,” she said.

She recommends that field trips to thriving agricultural farms should be standard exposure for elementary and high school students.

Colladila recently underwent a two- week training on crops livestock-interaction towards sustainable production overseas. Part of the training is a two-day field trip to commercial goat, dairy, poultry and hogs farms. Participants came from the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Somalia, Nigeria, United States, France, Ethiopia, and Laos.

She said the post-training evaluation showed that the field trip is the most appreciated and most remembered part of the course.

Almost 16 percent of participants even planned to establish their own farm with similar systems and five percent of the Filipino participants were encouraged to pursue Masters degree in sustainable agriculture specializing in environmental science.

Four international participants and four Filipinos from the academe now use the field trip approach in the agricultural courses they are handling.