We Need Agribusiness Incubation For The Youth To Excite PH Education – And Agriculture!

Here is a reality that even my alma mater, PH’s premiere agriculture school, the University of the Philippines Los Baños, UP Los Baños, has either not realized or not given official attention:

PH Agriculture Education is irrelevant.
Or, 100 years plus too old!

The University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, was founded in 1908; and the objective was to graduate students who would go back to the farm with modern technologies & systems. But BS Agriculture has long been irrelevant when it comes to the business of agriculture – because instructors do not care about students!

Gaye Valerie Kolipano Vergara shares on Facebook this lament about teachers:

No matter how much pedagogy we know, no matter how many degrees we have, unless our students know that we care, they will not learn from us.

And I, a bonafide Career Service Professional-level teacher graduate of UP Los Baños, do declare that if our school and we teachers discuss, debate and develop courses that are more appropriate, our students will learn morefrom us.

Meanwhile today, it is common knowledge that:

Aggie graduates currently can hardly find work for pay!

Differently, Courses.com.ph has this list of careers[1]:

Plenty of employment opportunities are available for graduates of BS Agriculture. Some of these are in the fields of:

·       Research

·       Farm Management

·       Agriculture and Food Technology

·       Business

·       Teaching

Yes, there are plenty of employment opportunities – but also a million more than plenty of graduates of BS Agriculture! Courses.com.ph is dreaming.

Opportunities? Research, very few. Farm Management, even fewer. Agriculture & Food Technology, hardly. Teaching, not if you are not Civil Service-eligible.

Business – yes!
Aye, there’s the rub!

Which business, which crop? (image of PH farm produce from Business Diary[2])

Not even UP Los Baños trains its students to become business owners. No, it’s not financing – the Philippines is rich! For instance, PH is allotting P1T to spend against the coronavirus alone (see my essay, “PH Govt Allots Over P1T For Strategy Against Virus – Wrong Strategy[3]!” this blog.) That’s US $20 Billion against 1 tiny organism.

Instead, the Schools, Colleges & Universities, SCUs, should be being additionally financed to offer:

Education for aggie business.

Say, after a short workshop-course of 100 days, a young one should be able to submit a full proposal for an aggie business that is entirely original.

I am looking at the Schools, Colleges & Universities, SCUs. Let the Commission on Higher Education, CHEd, in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, DA, being in charge of the program “Agribusiness Incubation Philippines 2020,” AI Philippines. Then AI Philippines will pre-select 92 SCUs all over the country, say 50 in Luzon, 25 in the Visayas, and 17 in Mindanao, as participant venues in schooling young people, male and female, with mentors from the private sector, into becoming owners of start-up businesses, each one with an original concept.

Through AI Philippines 2020, CHEd and the DA will ensure an exciting & enriching decade ahead of us via agriculture alone!@517

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[1] https://www.courses.com.ph/bsa-bachelor-of-science-in-agriculture-philippines/

[2] https://businessdiary.com.ph/13978/top-100-most-profitable-agribusiness-ideas/

[3] https://witgood.blogspot.com/2020/04/ph-govt-allots-over-p1t-for-strategy.html