The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Tuesday rolled out the national color-coded agriculture guide map (NACCAG) it developed under the Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture (AIMA) to help farmers decide what to plant in their areas.
President Duterte led the launching of the NACCAG in Malacañang. Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said the color-coded guide map would serve as the “backbone” of the DA’s program for boosting farm productivity.
“The NACCAG, or Color-Coded Agriculture Guide Map, is a campaign commitment of President Duterte that will enable farmers and fishermen to obtain interactive data on things related to farming and fishing,” Piñol told reporters in a news briefing on Tuesday.
“For example, by typing the name of his region, province and town, a farmer will be able to determine what crops could be grown ideally in his area, down to the barangay level,” he added.
By accessing the web site www.farmersguidemap.gov.ph, he said a fisherman would also know when a storm or dangerous climatic conditions would occur because it will have a link to the Pagasa web site.
Piñol said the NACCAG incorporates and digitalizes all the latest scientific data on soil analysis, climate impact, geographical hazards and weather prediction from Pagasa under the web site www.farmersguidemap.gov.ph.
He said the DA plans to put up information centers in the busiest agricultural areas and communities in the country so that farmers could easily access the data from the web site.
The creation of NACCAG is part of the government’s plan to identify the comparative advantages of specific areas in the country in farming, as indicated in the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017-2022.
“It will contain updated subnational information on soil characteristics, water availability, climatic types, topography and socioeconomic conditions,” Chapter 8 of the PDP read.
“The map will inform production decisions about suitable crops and agricultural activities. It will also guide the identification and prioritization of programs, projects and activities in the sector,” it added.
The DA said it took seven months to complete the NACCAG. Piñol said NACCAG is still a “work in progress” that would need to be updated constantly to include other data that would help farmers make decisions on their planting practices.
“We will continue to improve this in the next two years and add more data layers such as the inclusion of water availability map which would show the water table of areas in the country,” he said.
The AIMA was allocated a budget of P36 million. Aside from the map, the DA has also created the Nutrient Expert software which could help farmers manage their crops during extreme weather conditions.
1 comment
While it is commendable to have this color-guided map for guide on what ideal crops and vegetables can be grown it does not even mention COCONUT, ‘The Tree of Life!” Instead it placed palm oil when we should be harnessing and maximizing the potentials and benefits derived from coconut production.
This is again a ‘road map’ to disaster!