DEL CARMEN, SIARGAO– The Project Smarter Approaches to Reinvigorate Agriculture as an Industry (SARAI) presented and exhibited technologies and systems in the Budding Season Agri-Youth Camp at Provincial Nursery, Brgy. Cancohoy, Del Carmen, Siargao from April 5 to 7, 2019. The camp was part of the Agri-Youth program organized by the Municipal Agriculture and Fishery Office of Del Carmen and with by 52 youth leaders from different municipalities of Siargao attended the event.
Project SARAI provides a vessel of inspiration and wisdom to encourage and equip the youth to pursue agriculture not only in line of work but more so as part of their lifestyle. This would hopefully transcend to their respective communities with the goal of achieving food security in the island of Siargao.
In the session for the Agri-Technology and Agri-Innovations, SARAI team highlighted the different SARAI-developed technological advancements and innovations such as the Community-Level SARAI Enhanced Agricultural Monitoring System (CL-SEAMS), SARAI Knowledge Portal and the Smarter Pest Identification Technology (SPIDTECH). CL-SEAMS is a system that can provide near-real time monitoring of crops planted in an area through the use of readily available satellite images. The SARAI Knowledge Portal is the online hub for all the project’s services and data products. SPIDTECH on the other hand is a mobile application that has the ability to identify and report different pests and diseases of SARAI priority crops.
The participants expressed interest on how SARAI technologies and systems can be life changing to the farmers and how they can contribute as a youth to the agriculture sector. Aside from introducing SARAI, researchers namely, Ms. Rosemarie Laila Areglado (Development Communication and Environmental Science), Engr. Jerome Suarez (Agricultural Engineering), and Mr. Angelo Guiam (Computer Science) shared an inspirational talk on how their background can contribute to the development of the agriculture sector. (Ria Jhoanna Ducusin and RM Areglado)
