WESTERN VISAYAS, October 30, 2023 – To capture good practices on data collection for a more improved data analysis and management, the National Program Management Office (NPMO) of the Department of Agriculture – Special Area for Agricultural Development (DA-SAAD) Program, through its Information Technology and Database Development (IDD) Unit, conducted an onsite profiling and field validation with the members of Tubod Farmers Association (FA) in Bingawan, Iloilo on September 26.

Mr. Saturnino R. Palahang, Jr., Executive Assistant of the SAAD Program National Director, and Mr. Jerech Flauta, ITDD staff from the NPMO, spearheaded the orientation with the region’s ITDD unit on September 25 to briefly explain the main purpose of the visit and to plot the series of activities to be conducted.

Moreover, to obtain valuable assessment and identify the issues and concerns on the actual data collection processes, the team visited the Tubod FA to cross-check existing profiles and validate the information with the beneficiaries for accurate entry into the database system. The said activity serves as a platform for implementers where they can gain a perspective on the way data should be gathered, shared, and utilized.

Following the two-day preliminary activity, the NPMO facilitated the orientation on KoboToolBox, an application used for primary data collection and georeferencing, and introduced its software features to the region’s IT officers and Area Coordinators. This equipped the regional implementers with the knowledge on how to fully maximize the features of the said digital toolkit.

The NPMO concluded the three-day activity with a feedbacking session where Mr. Palahang underscored the importance of identifying one’s self and asking consent upon data gathering, especially in dealing with farmers’ personal information, and to cross-match the current data with existing data in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) for possible inclusion of the farmer’s information in the server. Further suggestions include, but not limited to, tagging duplicate data as inactive and endorsing farmer’s profile to RSBSA if a member is not registered yet.

He likewise shared his observation on the uniqueness of the geotagging process of the region, with which the team deployed does not only focus on capturing the communal area of the association but goes house-to-house for inclusive documentation of the members.

As the region works toward the completion of validating all farmer’s profiles, the program also works in dissecting the entirety of the data collection process in an effort to gain a much deeper understanding and to make sense of the extracted data at hand. ###

Writer: Cedie C. Bataga, DA-SAAD 6 Information Officer
Source: SAAD 6 ITDD Unit