The Central Luzon State University in collaboration with Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center and Technical University in Munich with funding from GTZ pioneered a project entitled “Development of peri-urban vegetable production systems for sustainable year-round supply to tropical Asian cities”. The goal of the research project is to meet the urban demand for stable year-round supply of safe vegetables while its purpose is to reduce levels of harmful contaminants on vegetables and improve the productivity of peri-urban vegetable systems for Metro Manila market.
CLSU’s part remains as generator and verifier of technologies. However, reaching the established goal of the project is not possible without building a viable partnership with stakeholders that include local government units, non-government organizations, financial institutions, and farmers who are in the frontline of extending and adopting the technologies.
The paper discussed the methodologies and strategies used in developing a strong partnership with the stakeholders. These include rapid rural appraisal, declaration of cooperation through memorandum of agreement/understanding, capability building through Training of Trainers (TOT), Farmers Field School (FFS), on-farm trials, field days, technology fairs, print and broadcast media.
As of 2002, a total of 935 farmers, agricultural technicians, and researchers have participated in various technology promotion and capability building activities conducted. One trainers’ training was conducted on integrated crop management for pak-choi and two trainers’ training on grafted tomato for off-season production. The trainers conducted several sessions of FFS trainings in Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Laguna, Batangas, and Quezon provinces.
There were 46 sites selected for on-farm trials of integrated crop management for pak-choi and grafted tomato; 31 in Nueva Ecija, four in Laguna, four in Batangas, six in Quezon, and one in Pampanga.
Weekly monitoring by the combined team of CLSU-AVRDC and respective LGUs was done to ensure continuing rapport and learning among the clienteles.
