TOCHIGI, Japan — Two Filipinos are undergoing a nine-month training at the Asian Rural Institute (ARI) here on improved agricultural productivity and encouraging young people in the countryside to pursue agriculture in the Philippines.

Nazario Tuguinay and Mari La-ao are among the 30 participants of this year’s training at the ARI, which has 18 different nationalities housed in the institute.

Tuguinay is from Lagawe, Ifugao and was sent for training by the Ifugao Provincial Agricultural and Fishery Council (PAFC) while La-ao is from Tadian, Mt. Province and was sent by the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP), which is planning to establish a pilot farm in Tadian.

“Here at ARI, we are taught about servant leadership,” La-ao said. “Everybody is working together and helping one another.”

Toshiaki Kusunoki, ARI general manager, said that ARI, which started in 1973, has a total of 1,130 graduates from 52 countries. The Philippines has the highest number of graduates in Southeast Asia at 122.

Kusunoki said servant leadership is important as the trainees are expected to serve their respective communities upon finishing the training by teaching the proper way of doing organic farming.

“This is an annual training of [agricultural] workers so that people from communities in Asia and Africa [can] improve their living standard. We give them the opportunity to grow into rural leaders in the future,” he said.

“We practice organic farming because we want rural communities to be independent from outside cash economies,” he added.

Tuguinay said the training is important to help revive the dwindling harvest in the world-renowned Ifugao Rice Terraces. He said he wants to teach organic farming in the area, particularly in the lowlands, where farmers still practice conventional farming.

“It’s hard to maintain the rice terraces now because the harvest is declining. There are the problems of earthworms and other pests so some people are dismayed to continue farming. The young people are also not interested in agriculture,” he said.

Both Filipino trainees said they want to establish a network that will encourage the youth to pursue farming.

In Japan, some young professionals from farming families have gone back to farming and established a network encouraging more young people to do farming activities due to the aging farming population.