Equal opportunities for all gender. This has been a call for the hiring process of many private and public companies. The speaker for the Episode 7 of the Aggie Ps Talk Season 7 is familiar with being discriminated due to her sex. Though qualified and perfectly suited due to her specialization, being a woman has caused Engr. Johanna R. Dizon to be rejected for three positions from different private companies.

But these rejections did not hamper Engr. Dizon’s to strive for greatness. She pursued a government position in the province of Bataan and has become a dependable and empowered woman advocating for agricultural modernization in their province.

Engr. Dizon is currently a Supervising Agriculturist in Bataan. With her presentation titled, “Modernization of Agriculture in the Province of Bataan,” aired via Zoom, Facebook Live, and YouTube last October 14, she shared how she was instrumental in achieving agricultural development in the province.

Engr. Dizon shared that Bataan has a vision to attain the lowest poverty incidence through quality growth. She explained that quality growth must be rapid, inclusive, sustainable, and efficient. But, their goal comes with challenges, including high population growth, food (in)security, aging farmers, and farm labor scarcity.

With these challenges the provincial government of Bataan realized the need to modernize agriculture. In its initial step towards this pursuit, various national government programs were poured into Bataan. Agricultural machineries like combined harvester, tractors, and onion seeders were distributed to farmers. Solar-powered irrigation system was also installed and postharvest facilities like mobile flash dryer, warehouse circulating dryer, and rice mill/Mini Cono were provided.

As the provincial government is determined to pursue agricultural modernization, it initiated the following projects:

1. Philippine Rural Development Project-Farm to Market Road to make transport of produce from farm to market easier and more affordable;
2. Clean Planting Nursery for Sweet Potato to enable farmers to produce disease free cuttings of sweet potato which caters to nearby provinces;
3. Ice Plant and Cold Storage to aid fisherfolks in storing surplus fish produce and to avail lower price of ice when they travel their fish produce;
4. Multi Commodity Solar Tunnel Dryer, a Rural Improvement Club project of women, where they could dry different kinds of fishes including banana, camote, and cassava for chips; and
5. Solar Bubble and Collapsible Dryer, which is an important equipment used to dry coffee beans for coffee farmers.

Engr. Dizon was also proud to share the establishment of a world class Agriculture Innovation and Technology Center (AITC) in Dinalupihan, Bataan, the first of this kind of project in the country. Through a Public-Private Partnership, the province partnered with Agrilever, an Israeli company. Under the joint venture agreement, Agrilever provides 21^st century farming technology and design services support system to be rolled out by AITC. Through this, they have set up pilot farms involving subsistence farmers in 10 different barangays in Dinalupihan. Each farmer cultivates around one hectare planted to crops like eggplant, chili, watermelon, squash, and tomato. Moreover, drip irrigation was installed through the National Irrigation Administration to achieve rich harvest efficiently even with low levels of rainfall. AITC’s support extends far beyond farming, covering the entire value chain from financing to crop insurance, input procurement, postharvest and processing centers to accounting and marketing. The AITC is hoped to entice the youth in Bataan to value agriculture through precision farming.

Concluding her presentation, Engr. Dizon said that there are challenges in achieving success. But, she emphasized that the heart and mind should be in harmony in whatever goal we want to achieve.

Watch the video through this link: youtube.com/watch?v=FpksaXfs_

(IMGesmundo)