Villar urges agricultural towns to open farm schools

Re-electionist Senator Cynthia Villar urged local leaders of agricultural towns all over the country to help their farmers to become more competitive with the opening of farm schools.

In her recent visit to Carranglan, Nueva Ecija for the 10th Gintong Butil Festival, Villar urged Mayor Mary Abad to encourage farm owners in their locality to convert their farms into learning sites.

"These farm schools will help farmers to learn for free modern ways of farming that will enable them to increase productivity and incomes and reducing their production cost," Villar said.

Villar also presented Abad with a book compiling the 1,855 tourist farm schools all over the country, which she reprints yearly as more farm schools are created. As an accredited TESDA learning site, Villar said farm owners could earn up to P100,000 a month for training 25 students.

The Nacionalista Party Senator is credited for the growth of farm schools in the country having authored Republic Act 10816 or the Farm Tourism law, which encourages small farmers to convert their farms into tourist farms and learning sites for agriculture and tourism courses.

Villar believes that farm tourist schools will be a major contributor in bringing back the glory days of agriculture in the country, given the potential to increase the income of people involved in agriculture and in creating a pool of farmers educated on the modern technologies of farming.