COTABATO CITY—Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR) heightened its campaign on Registry System on Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) and georeferencing through their conduct of information caravan held at Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao on Nov. 29, 2022.
The information caravan aimed to create awareness and raising activity to publicize georeferencing and official enrollment of farmers, farm laborers, and fisherfolks to the RSBSA within the Bangsamoro Region.
The RSBSA and georeferencing—a nationwide program of Department of Agriculture (DA)—are the two (2) basic requirements for the farmers and fisherfolks to avail of the agricultural inputs, machineries, irrigations services, infrastructure, and other support services.
Georeferencing is the process of taking digital image [it could be an air photo, a scanned geologic map or a picture of topographic map, adding geographic information to the image] so that mapping software can place the image in its appropriate real world location. Meanwhile, RSBSA is an electronic compilation of basic information on famers or fisherfolks.
MAFAR Director General for Agriculture Services Daud Lagasi mentioned, “aside from RSBSA and georeferencing for the farmers to avail of the MAFAR interventions, endorsement from the municipal and provincial officers are needed to make sure that all transactions are properly channeled to respective offices and thus, transparency is being practiced even in the distribution of interventions.”
Pendatun Patarasa, MAFAR director general for Fisheries, said, “through this digital enrolment of farmers or fisherfolks on their own data, we could also avoid duplication of any future assistances coming from MAFAR or from national government and thus, real recipients of certain programs and services will be properly identified and surely received by the farmer themselves.”
The municipal government of Datu Hoffer, through his Municipal Administrator, Norodin Mamaluba, warmly welcomed the MAFAR programs on information drive, believing that their own farmers will benefit from it.
“Our Mayor told me that any assistances from the MAFAR are very welcome here in Datu Hoffer, especially when farmer’s welfare are involved,” Mamaluba said. (Bangsamoro Information Office)
