Title : Agricultural sci-tech innovation assistance for food security and sustainability to Taal volcano’s internally displaced population in Batangas
Abstract:
On 12 January 2020, the Department of Science and Technology’s Philippine Instituteof Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) raised Alert Level from1 to 4 (out of 5) after increasing activity of Taal Volcano in Batangas. The eruption has resultedindevelopment challenges and problems such as increased poverty, limited livelihoodopportunities faced by farmers which manifest the serious impact of the eruptionon the ways of living and the livelihood activities. Thus, this project formulatedinwhich a series of workshop and training activities where conducted to assess, developand implement an action plan for rehabilitating the farm of the affected residents of Batangas, primarily at the Barangay’s of Talisay, Balete, San Nicolas, Laurel, Agoncillo, and Ibaan. The project also provide livelihood skills as a source of extraincome for the family. The participants were chosen by the Local Government Unit and composed mostly of members of 4P’s, fisher folks, and farmers. The beneficiarieswere already in a difficult situation not only because of the recent eruption of Taal Volcano in 2020 that rendered some of them homeless and unemployed but alsobecause of the COVID-19 which aggravated the situation. Based on the initial assessment, it was found out that agricultural livelihood and property were heavilydamaged by the eruption. Moreover, the said assessment led the project teamtoidentify initial livelihood training's that can be introduced to the affected communities. These training's included household opportunities through vegetable production, processing and organic concoction production to rehabilitate the soil fromaciditydueto sulfur deposition during volcanic eruption. Rehabilitation and recovery planfor the five (5) municipalities were also considered to capacitate the farmers. Thetraining's rendered were evaluated very satisfactory by the participants and foundtobe useful to augment the daily needs in terms of food and possible viable source of income. Keywords: Rehabilitation, Assessment, Livelihood, Eruption, Poverty
