AgriPortal Advocates Philippines Inc. and the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) have forged a partnership for sustainable agriculture.
Signatories of the five-year accord were Dr. Glenn Gregorio, SEARCA director, and Dr. Junifen Gauuan, chairman of the AgriPortal Board of Trustees.
Gregorio said SEARCA and AgriPortal have complementary objectives, and a mutual desire to collaborate in a number of areas of common interest such as education, training and research related to sustainable agriculture.
Gregorio explained that under the partnership, SEARCA and AgriPortal will collaborate in promoting and disseminating planting and gardening of "Bahay Kubo" seeds to K-12 learners in the country with the help of the Department of Education.
He said the Bahay Kubo Project is a combined initiative of SEARCA and AgriPortal that aims to educate the Filipino youth the essence of agriculture so that they can contribute through small yet impactful actions at home and in school.
"While AgriPortal provides vegetable seeds to schools and other stakeholders, SEARCA will also provide the kick-starter manual for the production of vegetable seeds," Gregorio said, adding that the collaboration will also include a webinar series on sustainable agriculture and agricultural enterprises with the latter catering to overseas workers.
He explained that the webinar series is SEARCA's bid to promote sustainable agriculture across Southeast Asia.
For his part, Gauuan said that AgriPortal being a nongovernment organization is functioning as a one-stop agricultural solution, and has dedicated various resources to reviving and renewing the agriculture industry in the Philippines.
"The organization is also designed to bring together various faith-based communities into agri-enterprise and agribusiness," Gauuan said.