Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) said that agriculture sector’s transformation is highly dependent on innovators that will propose new technology that could drive production and workflow.
This was tackled during the SEAMEO-University of Tsukuba Symposium VIII recently held in Tokyo.
Jointly organized by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) and University of Tsukuba at its Tokyo campus, the symposium was themed “Education for Inclusive Growth of Society 5.0.”
SEARCA is one of the oldest regional centers of SEAMEO, which was founded in 1965 to promote cooperation in education, science, and culture among Southeast Asian nations. The University of Tsukuba has been an affiliate member of SEAMEO since 2009.
In his talk on curricular imperatives in developing next-generation leaders of the agriculture sector in Southeast Asia, SEARCA Director Glenn Gregorio noted that the challenges posed by Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) include “preference for technology over human labor, security issues, reliability and stability of technologies, and the reluctance of people to change.”
He said these challenges are largely ethical concerns that need to be addressed at the school level.
“Character education therefore becomes even more important as we usher in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution characterized by changes, innovations, and disruptions in the society due to the fast-paced innovation and technology development,” Gregorio explained.
“While these innovations and disruptions would mean increased productivity and efficiency, it could in another way negatively affect social identities, values, and established ethics,” he added.
Therefore, he said the region needs “innovators with big hearts to be the heart of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, stressing that the best resource would be neither capital or labor but those people who can create new ideas and innovation.
“SEARCA’s vision for the agriculture sector, for instance, is towards the application of modern farm technologies and practices that will increase productivity and efficiency.” Gregorio said.
Gregorio said there is a need to transform small farmers into entrepreneurs and overcome problems of scale by concentrating in key production areas through industry-wide clustering and strengthening of cooperatives and farmers organizations.
