"We don't just need a hero now, what we need are partners."
That is according to Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) Director Glenn B. Gregorio, who said that support is needed from all the stakeholders in order to help farmers become entrepreneurs.
Gregorio said this as he delivered the keynote address at the 33rd Anniversary celebration of the Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Training Institute-Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-ATI-CAR).
In his keynote address titled "Climate Change and the 4th IR Readiness through Extension and Innovation on Farming Technologies," Gregorio emphasized that SEARCA is working with partners such as ATI to make a difference in agriculture in Southeast Asia and in the Philippines in particular.
During his speech, Gregorio shared SEARCA's strategic plan in the next five years starting July 2020, explaining that at the very heart of it is its key strategy to transform the agriculture sector by changing the farmers' mindset to that of "agripreneurs" through the use of technologies and engaging SEARCA's key partners, such as extension workers from ATI and local and national government leaders, in bridging science and technology to the farmers.
"Agriculture must be treated as a business and that it must be market-centric," Gregorio stressed.
"We need extension people to explain newly developed technologies, including upgraded breeds of crops, and to be catalysts in changing the famers' mindset," he added.