Project SARAi: Technologies for Climate Smart Agriculture in the Philippines

Project SARAi: Technologies for Climate Smart Agriculture in the Philippines

Climate change is one of the major problems in the agriculture sector. It reduces crop and livestock productivity, threatens food security, and lower income, especially to smallholder farmers. In the Philippines, an action-research program was established to work towards climate risks by providing agricultural stakeholders with site-specific crop advisories. Project SARAI or  Smarter Approaches to Reinvigorate Agriculture as an Industry in the Philippines provides farmers advisories for rice, corn, banana, coconut, coffee, cacao, sugarcane, soybean and tomato. The crop advisories focus on integrating local weather data and drought forecast with farm management activities, specifically nutrient and water management, and proactive pest and disease monitoring. This project is spearheaded by University of the Philippines Los Baños, in partnership with other state universities and colleges. Aside from crop advisories, the SARAi knowledge portal also provide farmers with services such as SARAi-enhanced agricultural monitoring system (SEAMS), water balance-assisted irrigation decision-support system (WAISS), soil profiling and characterization for 114 sites, and integrated pest and disease management systems. The program has a webinar series on smarter technologies, practices, and innovations for agriculture that can be accessed through their portal and social media platforms. Recently, the project launched Bantay SARAi, a mobile application that farmers can use to report their crop planting date, expected harvest date, expected yield, and damages. Some of its features include: Farm planting and harvesting records tracker, Damage Reporting, Live Location in map, SARAi Weather Forecast, Rainfall Outlook, and Drought Forecast. Download the app here: 

To know more about Project Sarai, visit their website at https://sarai.ph/

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