Some 111 farmers received certificate of recognition from the City Agriculture Office (CAO) during the graduation ceremony of the school-on-air (SOA) program on smart rice agriculture regarding vegetable and rice production on Thursday at the Barangay Gogon covered court.

Councilor Renato Valladolid, vice chairman on Committee on Agriculture, in his message, said the school-on-air training is very commendable on the part of the CAO, adding that this kind of program will be an additional knowledge to the farmers on how to apply the farm mechanization techniques.

Valladolid said SOA is the program of the government to help to uplift the standard of living of the farmers.

CAO chief Shiela Naz said the SOA training scheme is part of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) program under the Rice Tariffication Law to make the farmers more competitive.

Naz added the farmers have undergone 16 training sessions every Saturday and Sunday from May 21 until August 27, adding that they learned more modern technologies in farming.

She said through the radio-based program, the learning process has minimized the risk of exposure to mass gatherings and served as an alternative to face-to-face engagements.

She encouraged all graduate farmers to apply their knowledge to their farming activities for them to achieve a sufficient harvest of their agricultural crops.

Meanwhile, Roger Belludo, member of the Taysan Farmers Association, said the training program has given the farmers information on how to properly plant vegetables and hybrid and inbred palay that will result to higher yield.

“Through the SOA, we learned how to apply the ratio of organic and inorganic fertilizers during every planting season and we also learn the proper way of spraying the plants,“ Belludo said.

He said it is very important for all farmers to read first the label of the pesticides before applying them to the plants to make sure the recommendable ratio or gauge of it is compatible with the vegetable and rice that they planted. (PNA)