Surprise! 110 – that’s how old UP Los Baños is. 80 – that’s me, an alumnus, and I don’t remember reading about UPLB worrying and doing something about the fates of its graduates.
Here is UP Los Baños graduate Vicente Domingo, in his 2ndterm as a member of the Board of Agriculture of the Philippine Regulatory Commission, performing one of his duties:
Delivering my speech after conducting the mass oath taking held in Region 10. There were more than 600 (board passers attending), sponsored by (the Philippine Association of Agriculturists), PAA with the assistance of DA Reg 10. (Sadly), more than 80% of these new Professional Agriculturists are still jobless. Very unfortunate.
Jobless Agriculturists!
And what has UP Los Baños being doing about it? As far as I know, nothing. Same with PAA. But thank you very much, Board Member Sonny Domingo, for pointing out a major flaw in PH agricultural education!
A wide reader, crusading blogger, BSA major in Ag Education, UP '65, here are my recommendations:
Any major of any baccalaureate degree in any of the State Colleges & Universities, SCUs, should be all about entrepreneurship, such as:
BSA major in Agroforestry – with entrepreneurship such as in the raising of cacao and coffee under fruit & other trees as nurse trees.
BSA major in Agronomy – with entrepreneurship such as in making sugarcane molasses and in sugar-based products
BSA major in Animal Husbandry – with entrepreneurship such as in Poultry, Duck Raising.
BSA major in Communication – with entrepreneurship such as in publishing a regional weekly digital newspaper
BSA major in Education – with entrepreneurship such as in teaching multiple intelligences to farming youth
BSA major in Woodworking – with entrepreneurship such as in the use of narra, ipil-ipil, mabolo
Any educational undertaking by any of the SCUs should from now on be characterized as follows:
Technically feasible, economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially acceptable.
Entrepreneurship with an ecological twist – I’ll call it sustainable entrepreneurship.
Pertinently, an old news item says, “DA Allots P2-B To Fund Entrepreneurship Programs For Youth[1]” (09 January 2020). DA Chief William Dar says there are 2 programs: Young Agripreneurs Loan Program, YALP, and Micro and Small Agribusiness Loan Program, MSALP – with an initial budget of P1 billion each. Those funds may as well be reserved for students in SCUs with approved agripreneurship course plans.
Mr Dar says:
This is our way to attract the younger generation of Filipinos to be key players in attaining our vision of a food-secure Philippines with prosperous farmers and fishers. We have to replace aging farmers with younger blood – our Pinoy millennials – who are the future of Philippine agriculture.
Following my recommendation, under the YALP, agripreneurs 18-30 years old should be able to borrow up to P500,000, with zero interest, payable in 5 years. Under the MSALP, agripreneurs can borrow working capital or for fixed-asset acquisition, from P300,000 to P15 million for micro and small enterprises.
That’s dreaming big.
If you have to dream,
why, you might as well dream big!@517
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