QUEZON CITY -- More than five million farmers, fishers, and farm workers have to date registered under the national Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) that serves as a major requirement, prioritizing them to receive various assistance from the Department of Agriculture (DA).

“As of March 8, 2022, we have registered 5,463,735 farmers, fishers, and farm workers, exceeding our target amid the pandemic that restricted movement and physical contact,” said Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar.

“Once registered, they are given priority in availing of agriculture and fishery assistance in the form of cash or farm inputs like seeds and fertilizers, and fuel subsidy vouchers, and crop insurance, to name a few,” the DA chief added.

The DA has been encouraging all farmers, farm workers/laborers, fisherfolk, including farm youth to register in their respective City or Municipal Agriculture Offices (C/MAOs), where they are assisted in filling out the RSBSA enrolment form, said DA Assistant Secretary for Regional Operations Arnel de Mesa.

The one-page, back-to-back RSBSA form contains the enrollee’s personal and relevant socio-economic information, farm land ownership, size, corresponding crops/commodities being tilled, and if the farm is irrigated, rainfed lowland, or upland, among other information. The RSBSA also collects information about their membership in farmers’ or fisherfolk’s associations or cooperatives (FCAs) and other sectoral affiliations.

Thereafter, the data are encoded by the respective DA-RFOs and transmitted for consolidation to the DA Information and Communications Technology Service (ICTS) into the Farmers and Fisherfolk Registration System (FFRS), said ICTS OIC-Director Honorio Flameño.

To date, 5,214,972 farmer and fisher records were already encoded in the FFRS. Further, the respective data from the National Coconut Farmers Registry System (NCRFS) administered by the DA’s Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) and the ‘FIshR’ s of the DA’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) will be integrated into the FFRS.

The Department, in tandem with the C/MAOs, will continue to undertake the RSBSA enrolment process, and the integration of existing agri-fishery database systems until all the estimated 12 million farmers, fishers, farm workers, and other target agriculture-based beneficiaries nationwide are registered.

Further, the DA-ICTS will continue to update, validate, and monitor the registry system to provide the “OneDA family” a reliable and credible database to ensure that agriculture interventions are properly targeted and implemented accordingly, added Flameño.

The RSBSA has three main components: farmer and fisherfolk profiling, farm parcel georeferencing, and the interventions monitoring system.

Profiling requires basic collection of information of farmers, fishers, farm workers, and other agrifishery-related beneficiaries that include personal data, farm ownership, and related activities, and association or enterprise involvement, among others.

In parcel georeferencing, farm production areas are measured, including other physical parameters that serve as guides for government interventions to be more suitable to increase farmers’ and fisherfolk’s productivity and incomes, and make their operations resilient and sustainable.

The interventions monitoring system serves as a tool for tracking the programs and activities participated by our farmer and fisher beneficiaries, including the interventions they receive from the Department.

“In all, the RSBSA and FFRS (the tool to update RSBSA database) are key components of the digital agriculture strategy of the ‘OneDA Reform Agenda’ that involves the application of cutting-edge technologies and innovations throughout the food systems for the benefit of all food supply chain stakeholders, particularly small farmers, and fishers,” said Secretary Dar.

“Having an accurate and updated registry system is undoubtedly a critical ingredient when crafting policies to attain our vision of a food-secure and resilient Philippine agriculture,” he added, underscoring that all the DA commodity banner programs, including those of various agencies, bureaus, and other offices rely on the RSBSA database and FFRS online system for the delivery of their respective services and interventions to clienteles.

In particular, Asst. Sec. de Mesa said the successful and efficient distribution of assistance through the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund-Rice Farmers Financial Assistance (RCEF-RFFA) could be attributed to the updated RSBSA list of rice farmers, wherein unconditional cash assistance of P5,000 was loaded into the accounts of 1,049,722 rice farmer-beneficiaries, as of March 8, 2022, who till an area of two hectares or less.

“The RSBSA, being one of the priority initiatives of the Department, will be constantly enhanced to ensure data reliability and consistency, and we will continue to innovate and integrate sets of protocols to maintain the system’s efficiency and integrity,” concluded Secretary Dar. (PLesaca and DABattad, DA StratComms)