The Province of Bukidnon was the venue for the provincial level pilot testing for the Enhanced Operation Manual (e-OM) of the Department of Agriculture Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) held last April 6-8, 2021.

The activity was conducted by the I-PLAN component of DA-PRDP and attended by the Provincial Core Planning Team lead by the Provincial Planning and Development Coordinator (PPDC) and representatives from Provincial Agriculture, Provincial Veterinary Office, Provincial Engineering, Enterprise, Environment and Natural Resources Office (ENRO), Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, Provincial Agricultural and Fishery Council (PAFC) Coordinator, Municipal Agriculture Office from selected municipalities and cities in Bukidnon.

Also in attendance were representatives from the Central Mindanao University (CMU) which was the commissioned state university that authored the Climate-Risk Vulnerability Assessment (CRVA), as well as representatives from Nestle Philippines.

I-PLAN’s objective in enhancing their operation manual is to integrate the Department of Agriculture’s various climate change vulnerability, resilience and adaptation tools, and to incorporate these into the investment planning processes of the Department. Aside from that, their goal is to introduce other enhancements in the I-PLAN Operation Manual to strengthen the quality and strategic nature of investments. 

The Provincial Commodity Investment Plan or PCIP is one of the tools DA-PRDP uses for planning and investment programming which serves as a common reference to leverage investments for agriculture and value chain development. It provides a strategic plan that rationalizes the interventions within the various segments of the value chain of commodities that are significant in the province that will contribute to the national goals of the agriculture and fishery sector. With the pilot testing, climate change considerations can be incorporated into the PCIP using the e-OM as a guide.

PSO Mindanao I-PLAN Component head Cerenio Tila said that there is a need to enhance the operations manual to include climate change resilience  in agriculture and biodiversity conservation for sustainability in agri-fishery production.

“The current version of I-PLAN’s operation manual seeks to enhance the National Agriculture and Fishery Modernization and Industrialization Plan (NAFMIP). The former version was only called AFMP and did not include ‘industrialization’ in its plan,” said Tila.

He also added that one of the major changes to the e-OM is the inclusion of science based tools like the use of the “ridge-to-reef approach” which is a tool for the integration of spatial planning. 

Phase I started in 2019 which consisted of meetings with the task team and consultations with different government line agencies, while Phase II started in 2020 which consisted of the actual updating of the manual.

Bukidnon was chosen as the pilot province for the Mindanao Cluster after meeting the criteria set for climate-resilient vulnerability assessment (CRVA), climate resilient agriculture (CRA), Fisheries vulnerability assessment tool (FISHVOOL), fisheries and coastal resiliency (FISHCORE), and Mindanao Inclusive Agriculture Development Project (MIADP). 

The output from this pilot testing will be used to improve the draft e-OM and once finalized, will be rolled out by the task team for implementation in the Project. The pilot testing period started last March 29, 2021 and will end by April 19, 2021. (Joy M. Montecalvo)