AMID alarm over massive unemployment and increasing poverty following the global financial crisis, President Arroyo directed the investment of P200 million in a two-year national program envisioned to develop human resources, boost employment, and promote livelihood generation in the agriculture, forestry, fisheries and natural-resource sectors of the country.

Charged with the task of managing this program are the Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development.

The program, Enhancing the Demand for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources (AFNR) Graduates Through Science and Technology, has three components: policy research, institutional-capability enhancement, and support to income and employment generation.

The program comes at the heels of a drastic decline in the enrollment of students in AFNR courses, which threatens the critical mass of professional and skilled workers needed to sustain these vital sectors of the Philippine economy. The urgency of the program is bolstered by the need for AFNR graduates to land stable jobs and have viable livelihood alternatives.

Component 1 of the program seeks to inventory the national pool of AFNR students and graduates, trace their placement in the regions, and survey AFNR employers and establishments.

This pioneering nationwide effort will assess the current state and future capacity of human capital in the AFNR sectors.

Conponent 2 targets the improvement of AFNR education in key state universities and colleges (SUCs) through the enhancement of facilities, equipment, curriculum, and short-term training for students, graduates and faculty.

The first two components address the dwindling AFNR human-resource base in the country, while the third and biggest component focuses on providing opportunities for employment and income generation even before the students graduate.

It also promotes options for alternative self-employment and entrepreneurship through student internship and immersion in educational income-generating projects with high science and technology content, technopreneurial learning projects and DOST academe technology-based entrepreneurship development projects. Through these learning-by-doing projects, students become aware of the business and self-employment options open to them upon graduation.

Ongoing entrepreneurship immersion projects include bamboo processing and lowland vegetable production in the Ilocos; strawberry and highland vegetable production and processing in the Cordilleras; goat production and processing in Cagayan Valley; rice-seed production in Central Luzon; coffee, fruit and dairy processing in Southern Tagalog; pili production in Bicol; abaca production in Central, Eastern Visayas and Caraga; rubber production in Western Mindanao; fin-fish, shellfish, shrimp and seaweed production in Northern Mindanao and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; and banana production in Southern Mindanao.

Component 3 also funds the setting up of agri-based technology business incubators (TBI) in SUCs. With these TBIs providing a protected business environment, AFNR students and graduates get on-the-job training on entrepreneurship. SUC constituents, their immediate communities and regional service areas can also be benefited.

This range of possibilities widens the prospects for job seekers, who will no longer depend solely on employment. AFNR graduates who opt to become entrepreneurs will have a stronger foundation to start their own agribusinesses, and can even become employers.

An estimated 6,257 AFNR students, 3,491 graduates, 510 faculty and 1,168 other clients from 56 SUCs and their communities across 14 regions of the Philippines are expected to benefit from training, employment and enterprise development, and support services from this two-year program. (S&T Media Service)