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Archives (2004)

Future agriculture: The integration of GIS and CPAR by Ma. Lizbeth Baroña

April-June 2004 Volume 6 No. 2

When our forefathers stood on their farms wondering how much more they can get from their patch of land, they might be amused to know that advanced technology has provided answers to that query by first answering the question of “knowing exactly where”. And the Bureau of Agricultural Research(BAR) is right on track in getting to the answer through GIS and the Community Participatory Action Research(CPAR).

Geographic Information System(GIS) expert Dr. Esteban Godilano suggested a new avenue that can be tapped to turn the agriculture industry around. Dr. Godilano presented the advantages of integrating GIS technology to the CPAR approach, and other agricultural endeavors.

GIS and Agriculture
We are focused now on increasing production to feed the population. The challenge lies on how we can produce enough food in a sustainable manner without damaging the natural resource base.

Today, signs of fatigue in the natural resource base have already appeared which should be a cause for serious concern to the planners, decision-makers and researchers alike, in the agriculture and fisheries sector.

The enabling technology that could address this concern is the principle of managing spatial and of-time variables associated with all aspects of improving agricultural production and preserving the environment.

In agriculture, research, development, and extension(RD&E) involve decisions that are multi-disciplinary in nature, and are commodity and discipline oriented. But technologies like GIS can help establish a cross-sectoral communication by providing powerful tools for analyzing land-use. GIS is a more efficient tool in decision-making that would help stakeholders see and understand what researches are being proposed, and in what place can they be best undertaken. Problems that are most likely to occur during the implementation of the project, will be pinpointed as early as during the decision-making process using GIS.

BAR embraces GIS
BAR has been proposing GIS application because it allows for precision decision-making.

For one, an agency that is beset with budget issues thus having to streamline its activities would benefit from a tool that would provide a spatial point-of-view of the arena where the meager resources of the agency is painstakingly distributed.

Dr. Godilano said investments in RD&E, which are carried out by SCUs and other partner R&D institutions, yield voluminous reports and statistical data that are published and archived, but never mapped. Mapping out will enable us to answer vital questions of: where else; to what extent, who are the target clients; where are they situated; and to provide “what if” scenarios.

GIS and CPAR
The prerequisites of the GIS to be CPAR-friendly would be data or information defined by the experts.

For example, if you want to know the suitability of planting high value vegetable crops in Mindanao, you would need data on rainfall, climate, elevation range, soil characteristics, ground water potential. These criteria are then translated into cartographic models, which are in turn executed by a GIS software. Socio-economic and demographic data are incorporated in the final maps.

This information generates color-coded maps showing the regions that are highly, moderately, or not suitable areas for planting. The maps are easier understood than a table of data, especially for policy-makers, extensionists, and farmers. The map aids in tactical planning by our extension technicians, and helps financial institutions come up with favorable and confident decisions because uncertainties are minimized.

“GIS technology also serves in establishing concrete and useful programs based on real needs, not on the basis of whims and friendships among decision-makers”, Dr Godilano explains.

“Since technology and suitability of crops can now be geographically located through maps, the area can also be calculated by a software that goes down even to specific plots,” Dr Godilano adds. Once a suitable area has been identified, the technology can also identify specific farmers based on demographic data on income, level of literacy, or incidence of poverty

A good example of this is the mango suitability map that has previously been created. “Results of the GIS analysis showed that at least 11 provinces in the country that have been already planted with mango are actually not suitable. But on the other hand, 3.5 million hectares were identified as highly suitable areas. This map helps establish the `mango estate`,” Dr Godilano reveals.

In fact, after BAR spearheaded the establishment of the DA-GIS Network, it reaped an early result: the Bureau of Animal Industry(BAI) is on the planning stage of implementing GIS by using it as tool for the monitoring, evaluation, and devising mitigating measures for foot and mouth disease(FMD) as one of its major component.

Dr. Godilano adds that he thought of integrating GIS in CPAR because of a problem he himself encountered as a scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). “Our greatest problem during that time was, after determining the best alternative systems using on-farm-research(OFR), we needed to extrapolate the results to wider areas covering provinces and regions. But the methodology in identifying the extrapolation domain has never been perfected. It was a hit and miss method, because GIS was not available then.”

“There is so much to be worked on the awareness of the stakeholders and policy makers on the benefits of GIS. Every government agency should have a geographic resource officer and a trained GIS analyst,” he offers as one practical solution. He also says there should be more sharing in data and information among concerned institutions.

Into the future
While we work for a burgeoning population amidst dwindling resources, we are not without help. GIS is a tool that can revolutionize agriculture into precision farming. What was once referred to by the GIS expert as the “missing link” in the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act(AFMA) has been identified, and GIS has become an imperative, not an option.

Sources:
1) Integrating GIS in CPAR, Dr. Esteban Godilano, Knowledge Management Seminar Series, BSWM; 2) GIS Technnology: Increasing Agricultural Productivity and Resource Efficiency, Dr. Godilano, SEAMEO-SEARCA; 3) DA-BAR Adopts 3's Technology by Dr. Godilano

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