Harmonized with an on-going intervention led by the PCC’s Knowledge Management Division (KMD) entitled “Strengthening Carabao Development Program (CDP) Communication for Development (ComDev) Campaign in Visayas and Mindanao”, a learning platform called School-on-the-Air (SoA) on Dairy Buffalo Production was launched on August 4 to further enhance the knowledge and skills of carabao raisers in Iloilo.

It is a pilot activity of PCC hosted by its regional center based in West Visayas State University (PCC at WVSU), as supervised by its Center Director Arn D. Granada.

Together with Mr. Granada, Dr. Eric P. Palacpac, the project leader of the ComDev campaign and chief of KMD, served as guest speakers during the launching of the SOA.

The said intervention will be aired for four months (August – November) every Saturdays over DYFM Bombo Radyo Iloilo. Around 500 farmer-enrollees will be catered by the SOA program from seven municipalities of Iloilo namely Calinog, Lambunao, Bingawan, Badiangan, Janiuay, Dueñas, and Leon and one municipality (Sapian) in Capiz.

The SoA module covers different lessons under Feeding Management, Health Management, Breeding Management, Carabao Enterprise, and Technology Adoption.

During this program, the enrollees will be given quizzes to assess their learnings for a couple of lessons to be discussed. The SoA coordinators from each respective municipality, as identified by PCC at WVSU, will facilitate the pre-test, quizzes among farmer-enrollees during SOA program, and a post-test evaluation afterwards.

Meanwhile, selected 30 farmers representing four municipalities of Iloilo will be concurrently enrolled in a Farmers Livestock School on Dairy Buffalo Production (FLS-DBP), according to Dr. Myrtel Alcazar of PCC at WVSU.

“FLS-DBP is a 34-week on-site training course with practicals or hands on to fully introduce PCC’s developed technologies and hone the skills of farmers”, she said.

On the other hand, the ‘blended’ approach of integrating FLS with SoA is intended to create an interactive learning among farmers. Thus, the SoA program will also adopt the innovation of engaging some farmer-leaders as resource persons in some of the lessons to further facilitate learnings.

Strategies and methodologies are adopted from the imparted practices of ATI VI with the help of Ms. Nicolasita G. Gallego, Information Officer III/Chief, Information Services Section.

The Agricultural Technology Institute Region VI (ATI-RVI) and Department of Agriculture Regional Agriculture and Fisheries Information Division (DA-RAFID VI) joined forces in the implementation of the program and extended support to the funding of the air time, training materials and other logistics of the SOA.

As the PCC expands its communication campaign, a series of interventions are also expected to be soon developed in other regional centers of PCC in Mindanao. This is to further reach buffalo raisers or carabao keepers and continuously disseminate programs, services, and technologies in these parts of the country.