Twenty-five participants completed an 11-day learning event for facilitators under the Farmer Livestock School on Dairy Buffalo Production (FLS-DBP) project conducted by the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) last April 16-30, 2018.
Eight of them were PCC regional centers’ staff members, seven were Local Government Unit officials, and 10 were progressive farmers from South and North Cotabato, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Bukidnon, La Union, Pangasinan, and Ilocos Norte.
The learning event was aimed at enhancing the delivery of extension support, education, and training services (ESETS) of PCC towards participatory technology development and eventual adoption or utilization by village-based dairy buffalo farmers.
“A series of lectures with actual demonstration, workshops, field exposure and hands-on activities aimed at equipping of participants with knowledge and skills as facilitators on FLS-DBP were featured in the learning event,” Dr. Eric Palacpac, Information Officer V and FLS-DBP project leader, said.
The FLS-DBP project adopted a platform for trainers and participants to learn interactively by exchanging ideas and breaking the teacher-student barrier.
The participants underwent six training courses, as prepared by the module developers from the PCC. These courses were: (1) Preparing Facilitators for FLS Implementation; (2) Mobilizing Communities for FLS; (3) Raising Healthy and Productive Dairy Buffalo; (4) Building Enterprises from Buffalo; (5) Participatory Technology Development; and (6) Participatory Tools to Measure FLS Effects and Impacts.
“As one of the expected outputs of this training, LGU-partners will be the lead implementers of this learning platform in their respective areas with the village-based dairy buffalo farmers as participants,” Dr. Palacpac emphasized.
He added that the good thing about this training is that “we do not impose on the farmers to adopt the technologies, instead, they will learn about various technology options and choose and adopt which is (are) appropriate or suitable to their local conditions.”
The learning event was organized by the PCC’s Knowledge Management Division under Dr. Palacpac. FLS-DBP module developers from the PCC National Headquarters and PCC at Central Luzon State University served as facilitators. Project staff members Ms. Rovelyn T. Jacang and Mr. Erwin M. Valiente, served as members of the secretariat cum facilitators.
