The Department of Agriculture (DA) has launched a novel project in tandem with a major telecommunications company that will enable farmers and fisherfolk to easily access agriculture-related information and extension services via telephone, the Internet or short messaging service (SMS).

Secretary Arthur C. Yap said the Farmers’ Contact Center (FCC), which is being run by the DA’s Agricultural Training Institute (DA-ATI) in partnership with Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), is part of the Extension component of the government’s flagship program on food security dubbed FIELDS.

FIELDS, which enumerates the six areas where government support are being focused on under the government’s food security and sufficiency agenda, stands for Fertilizers, Irrigation and other rural infrastructure like farm-to-market roads (FMRs), Extension services and education for farmers, Loans, Dryers and other postharvest facilities, and Seeds and other genetic materials.

Yap led agriculture officials in recently launching the Farmers’ Contact Center (FCC), which was held in Tagbilaran, Bohol and attended by some 400 guests composed of agricultural extension workers, farmers, local government officials, people and non-government organizations, as well as some representatives from the DA agencies and partner agencies of the Department.

The FCC can be contacted through the hotline numbers 982-2474 (AGRI) for Metro Manila, 1-800-10-982-2474 (AGRI) for provincial toll free calls and 0928-4990-965 for mobile users.

Inquiries can also be sent through text at 391-32 (DA) for SMART and TalkNText subscribers and 0928-4990-965 for non-SMART subscribers. The FCC can also be accessed through e-mail at info@e-extension.gov.ph

FCC services available to farmers and fisherfolk include technical advisory on agriculture and fisheries technologies and agricultural marketing assistance to make their farming or fishing activities more profitable for them.

The DA-ATI has organized three levels of support for the effective implementation of the FCC which would be made available to respond to clients’ queries.

Level 1 involves the contact center agents with agriculture background who will answer the queries using the FCC Knowledge Base (KB). Should the queries need further information, they will be escalated to the experts from the various DA agencies and institutions.

If the query needs further probing or requires field and farm visits, the query may be referred to the FCC’s Level 3 experts, which include agricultural extension workers (AEWs), agricultural scientists and representatives of institutions and organizations like State Universities and Colleges (SUCs).