The REIGn team spearheaded by Dr. Paulo V. Cenas conducted a rapid rural appraisal in the 48 city and municipal LGUs across Pangasinan for the DA-funded project entitled “Assessment of the Resources and Capabilities of Pangasinan Local Government Units in Providing Agriculture and Fishery Extension Services”.
Agricultural Extension is basically the way by which generated knowledge, technology, and innovation are introduced to farmers and fisherfolks largely those living in rural areas in order to bring about change and improvement in their lives. Theoretically, extension should be seen as critically important to agricultural communities as it serves as access to the support and services required to improve agriculture and other farming-related activities.
As the objective of the aforementioned project was to describe the current system of Agriculture and Fishery Extension Services of the LGUs, the four key elements of the system must be mapped to the AFES. Catering to the needs of farmers and fisherfolk is the ultimate purpose of the system management. Because of limited period to conduct the assessment, the Rapid Appraisal (RA) method was used in gathering the needed data. Results of rapid appraisals have restricted reliability and validity.
All the LGUs in Pangasinan were considered in this project. Key informants being interviewed were the city/municipal mayors, municipal administrators, provincial agriculturist, agency heads and the PAFC chair. In the focus group discussion, participants were the municipal agriculturist, municipal planning officers, budget officers, MAFC chairs. The simple survey was accomplished by selected senior AEWs.
The conduct of the rapid rural appraisal in said cities and municipalities ran on identified dates in the months of May, July, and August 2021.
