 On behalf of the organizers, let me welcome you to this webinar. I'm Jean Mea. I'm a Strategic Communication Specialist from the International Rise Research Institute, Urgiri. I will be your MC and moderator for session one of today's webinar. The title of our webinar is Agriculture 4.0 and the Future, Perspectives, Challenges, and Vision. This webinar, organized by Urgiri, aims to facilitate the exchange of information and experiences under development and deployment of Agri 4.0 or information and communication technologies. Additionally, we would like to listen to the insights of the students on agriculture and its future. We want to look at agriculture with fresh eyes as we continuously grapple with global challenges and collectively find solutions to these challenges. Before we proceed with session one, I would like to invite John Helen, the platform leader of Sustainable Impact at Urgiri, to give his opening remarks. John, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Jean, and a very good morning to all of you who are listening in. I lead Urgiri's work on sustainable impact through rice-based systems, and I'm absolutely delighted that we're having this webinar today. Obviously, in different circumstances without COVID, we would be able to meet in person, but there's still a lot that we can achieve through a webinar. The topic is absolutely critical. The challenges that we have, these are the agriculture, the innovative solutions that are there, and I'm also particularly pleased that we have this mix of students, young people, the next generation. As Jean said, fresh ideas, that's what we need, and mutual learning between the new generation and those who've been working in agriculture for a long, long time. I would urge everyone to have as fruitful and open and exchange as you can do, and particularly for the young minds, you're the next generation, you're the future of agriculture in the Philippines and beyond, and it's your ideas and your actions which are going to ensure that this country and other places prosper. People like me, I've still got a few years of my working life left, but I in turn want to hear and need new ideas, new stimuli coming from you, so please, particularly young people, really engage in this webinar and beyond. Think out of the box, think as ambitiously as you wish. Sometimes you may come up with ideas that may seem silly, most ideas are not. Be bold enough to articulate them because it's only by these sorts of discussions that we can move forward. I will be listening in with great interest to the events this morning. I wish all of you every success. I'm delighted the area is hosting this, and it's wonderful to see the exchanges between the youth, the next generation, and those who have a few more years of experience under their belt. So on that, I'll leave it again, welcome, and let's have a fantastic next two and a half hours. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today, John. Let me now invite Sudhir Yadav to lay out the rationale of this webinar. He is also from the Sustainable Impact Platform of Erie, the research leader of the Soil, Water, and Environment Cluster. Take it away, Sudhir. Thank you, Jean. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. We are very pleased to see a very strong participation to discuss this vital topic, agriculture 4.0, the future, and sharing the perspective, challenges, and reasons. I can see that a lot of attendees are still coming in, as Jean said, that there are more than 200 attendees who have registered for this event. When we were talking about planning for this webinar, and we first thought about agriculture 4.0, we had discussed internally that what it means. Some would argue that fourth agriculture revolution or agriculture 4.0 has already begun. Each previous agriculture revolution was radical at the time. The first one representing its transition from hunting and gathering to settled agriculture. That was the face of agriculture in the beginning. The second one relating to the British agriculture revolution in the 18th century, which people often call industrial revolution also. The third one, which perhaps is most famous or known a lot, which happened after the Second World War, where there was a significant increase in the productivity. In developing countries, it mainly happened with variety, fertilizer, and irrigation. While in developed countries, it was because of mechanization. So now we are talking about agriculture 4.0. In their two terms, basically some people call it as a second green revolution. Some people who start from beginning call it agriculture 4.0. While this technological innovation is not new to agriculture, however, there are many emerging technologies across the value chain, including internet of things, cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence that has added a new dimension through agriculture now. And with these technologies, we can change the farming beyond recognition. And that was the main motive for us to gather together today and talk on this important topic. If you look at the signals which we are receiving from policy makers or private sector, that suggests that there is already a growing momentum behind agriculture 4.0, especially on the technology development side. So the question comes that when we are talking about this agriculture 4.0, how can this fourth agriculture revolution be socially responsible? Have we factored in the next generation of growers in the concept of agriculture 4.0? Or we are just talking about that the current farmers will be the one who can basically cope with this new concept and adopt the technologies. Some of the smart technologies may have or may not have the desired impact on farm, on environment, as well as on wider society. And it's very important to consider that agriculture 4.0 remain green. That's very, very important that we not only focus on technology, but also focus on on the planet. So this webinar is divided into two sessions. The first session is focused on listening to the next generation or to the next generation, whether they will be grower or they will be engaged as a consumer. It's very, very important to listen to them. And the objective is to highlight the next generation thinking about agriculture and how it can be further transformed to address the challenges of the 21st century. We have another session which focuses on and we have invited experts to that session who are working in the field of agriculture 4.0. And we would like to listen from their experience and presenting some case studies on ICP, IOT, agriculture 4.0. And most of these case studies are linked with soil climate and water. And the purpose is not that only we need revolution in this area. The purpose is taking it an example to debate on agriculture 4.0. My last point is that there is no silver bullet to achieve a revolution. And in this session, we will also talk about some critical challenges of implementing these technologies. Thinking about agriculture 4.0 is the first step, but we had to go a long way. And I hope that today's sessions will put some thoughts to a wider audience and as a global community, we can achieve this goal. Thank you very much. And I wish a productive session today. Thank you, Gene. Back to you. Thank you, Sidhir, that gave us an overview of what our audience is going to expect to expect today. Moving on, allow me to introduce to you the students who will be joining us for session one. I would like to request you guys to greet the audience, maybe say hi or hello when I call your name. If you can turn your camera on, that would be great. To start off, let me call on Alia and Diocampo from Diop National High School. Alia, thank you. Thank you, Alia. Alisson Ko from the University of the Philippines Rural High School. Good morning, everyone. Carl Guilla also from UP Rural High School. Hello, good morning. Joel Ronquilio from Diop National High School. Hello, Paul, good morning. Romer Andre Magpantai from Diop National High School as well. Hello, everyone. Good morning. And last but not the least, Ronald Alain Tabuta from UP Rural High School. Hello, good morning. Good morning to all of you and welcome. Just a quick rundown of the session and some house rules. The focus of this discussion is to understand what you think about agriculture and how it can be further transformed to address some of the 21st century's biggest challenges, to name a few growing population and depleting resources, pandemics like COVID-19, climate change, environmental degradation, inequality, and injustice among others. We are keen on listening to your insights which might help shape the future innovations in agriculture. You are highly encouraged to actively participate. Remember, there is no right or wrong answer. Anecdotes are also welcome. Should you wish to speak, press the raise hand button on the platform. You can also do this manually as I will use a gallery view to see all of you. During the discussion, you are also welcome to interact with other students present, should you wish to react or share something related to what they said. Lastly, mutual respect is expected from all participants. So before we formally begin, let's do a quick virtual exercise. It's not physical. It's really virtual. I'd like to request our audience to watch out for their screen because we will launch a poll for the attendees first. So the rule is not your insights actually, but what do you think will be the answers of the six students who are with us today on this question? So I am launching the poll right now and our attendees should see a pop-up on their screen with a question. If you are asked to paint a picture with a theme agriculture, how would yours look like? So again, this is what you think will be the answers of the six students who are with us today. I can see around 20 attendees answering the polls and it's going up continuously. Last time I checked, we have around 40 participants. So we're now at 30. Let's give it a few seconds. I'm going to end the poll now. Thank you very much to our audience. I'm going to reveal the answers later. Now what I'm going to launch is a poll for our students. To our audience, if you're also seeing it on your screen, just click the X button. So for our students, if you are asked to paint a picture with a theme agriculture, how would yours look like? A farmer flowing the field with a carabelle, a farmer using a computer to harvest his or her produce, a robot gathering data in the field while a drone is flying over it. So let's see. So we have six students and I'm going to end the poll now because it's complete. Now let me share the results first for what the audience think will be the answer of the students. You can see the results, I assume. So we have 13 answers or 38% for the first option, which is a farmer flowing the field with a carabelle. We have 12 answers, kind of really close to the first option. A farmer using a computer to harvest his or her produce. And we have a little lower answer for the third option, which is a robot gathering data in the field while a drone is flying on it. So let's say we have 13 and 12 for the first and second option and let us see if you are right. So these are the answers of the students. We have six, I think some of the panelists are also answered, but we have six who answered a farmer flowing the field with a carabelle. Before we continue, can I ask our students if have you been in a field, a rice field, a corn field, or even a garden with vegetables? Again, please raise your hand or manually or using the button. Yes, actually we are fortunate enough to get to experience planting rice first hand in our school because we actually consider, we include an agricultural subject in our education curriculum. So it's actually an area during our first year in high school. That's awesome. I also met Allison and we made it a point to bring them in the field because she was one of the winners of our video essay contest back in February for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. So I saw Romer also raise his hand. So Romer, can you please answer the question? Have you been in the field as well? I have been in a field once in my childhood, but I don't actually remember what kinds of plants or crops are growing in the field. And if you may, Romer, how old are you now? I am 16 years old. Okay, so he said when he was a kid. So anyone else who wants to share anything? So can you elaborate your answers? Do your answers reflect how you describe agriculture as you observe it now or do those reflect how you want it to be in the future? First, share what your answer is if you won't judge you. Anyone? Okay, so I'm seeing, just a moment, Ronald raise his hand. Hello, I chose the answer from the computer. Because personally, my father works in the feed of animals, the livestock. And he uses a formulation software and I believe the future is right now. That's why I chose the answer. I see you. I also saw Carl raise his hand. Carl, please. I'm going to be honest. My answer was a former plowing the field in the Carabao. And I think that's what we should revolutionize in agriculture so that the conventional picture that most people see will be a high-tech field. And yeah, that'll be all. Thank you. So we have extreme perspectives, I guess, if I may. Who else want to share their answers? And why do you think, I mean, why did you choose that answers? I see Allison. Okay, I kind of agree with Carl. I choose the first option, because currently that's how the society views agriculture, like a farmer flowing the field, which is actually true because farmers are the backbone of our agricultural sector. However, we still need innovation, further innovation in terms of technology, in order to adapt to our globalization and changing times. Okay. Actually, Allison, that's my next question. What do you think? Can anyone add? I see Ronald raising his hand and I want to ask Ronald to start off with the next discussion on what do you think are the challenges and opportunities in agriculture in relation to how you answered our first poll. It can be current that you are observing, like what you mentioned earlier, and also challenges that you are anticipating in the future. But also, we want to include opportunities, because you also mentioned some of those earlier. I think there are definitely things that we can improve on in terms of agriculture. We can incorporate many innovations, but I still think that we should still prioritize our farmers, since they have always been the one who is upholding agriculture. To our non-philippine speaking audience, both Allison and Ronald highlighted the importance of prioritizing our farmers in our agriculture initiatives and strategies. So anyone else, I am not sure. I'm not seeing Joel in my screen and Aliyah. So if you can please use the raise hand button, please do. Anyone who wants to follow Ronald, you can elaborate on your answers. What do you think are the challenges and opportunities in agriculture? Allison, sorry, can I call you again to expand what you said earlier? I said earlier that I think the most pressing challenge agriculture is facing today is how society, specifically the youth, views it. As you may have encountered recently, there was a trending Facebook post of a module distributed by the Department of Education wherein in this module, a family of farmers are depicted wearing fabric clothes and are portrayed as if they are living in stark poverty. Now this poor stereotypical depiction found in a learning module distributed to youths nationwide is only one out of the many discriminations and stereotypes established against farmers and agriculture itself, which is I think why students opt to pursue other careers rather than agriculture. And I think that is where the need for further learning comes in. That is achieved in forms like the seminar by agricultural institutions that first hand knows what agriculture needs. And I think the inclusion of agricultural subjects in the education curriculum, because I think it is through these platforms that you can be able to spread the word that agriculture is indeed important and that there is completely nothing wrong or humiliating or degrading about being a farmer, but rather it is something honorable and one of the hardest and most crucial work the society needs. Well said, Allison. Anyone who wants to react or make some statements regarding the topic? Okay, I guess that concludes our first discussion to summarize again for our non-Filipino viewers. Our students mentioned that some of the technologies are being used already not just in crops but also in livestock. And one of the things that is one of the challenges that we are facing right now is the stigma that the farmers are depicted as those who can't, for example, buy proper clothes and just in the field. But as our students mentioned earlier, they already mentioned some possible opportunities on how we can address those. It one includes putting some agriculture initiatives in the curriculum and some others that are also within the agriculture system. Now I'd like to invite our audience again to answer this poll. The mechanics is the same. It's not your insight, but what do you think will be the answer of our students in this question? So the question is just a moment. The question is what are your plans after finishing school? So these are the students' plans after finishing school. The options are to study or work in the engineering field. The second option is to study or work in the medical field. The next option would be study or work in the agricultural field or other plants that is not in the options. So we have now from 40, we have now 72 participants. I can see on my screen. So we're going into 40 answers. 30, sorry. So let's try 40 plus before I end this poll. So I will share the results later, but it's kind of different. The percentage is different for the options. Let's see. Let's see. It's interesting actually. So we have now 30 plus. So I guess I can end this poll. And like earlier, I will launch a poll to our students now. Just as students, we have also some of our panelists for the second session in the virtual room for panelists. So the same question. For our six students, what are your plans after finishing school? Okay. Let's see. So, okay, we now have the answers. I will end the poll. So let me first show you the results of the attendees answers. So 12 said, I hope you're seeing the results on your screen. 12 said to study or work in the agricultural field. So and eight and seven for medical field and engineering field and four for other plans. So the third option, which is study or work in the agricultural field, one, I will stop sharing the results and see if our audience is correct. So I will share the, so it's a tie for study or work in the medical field. And they had other plans. But we had one student who who answered study or work in the agriculture field. Can I ask who is that? Or maybe it's one of our speakers. I don't see anyone raising his or her hand. Did one of our speakers answer that? So that it has an answer. Okay. I don't see anyone raising their hand. But can you elaborate on your answers? Like, does your plan include at least contributing to the agriculture sector? Please raise your hand if you want to speak. I saw Carl. Carl, okay. So I answered the engineering field. I have never actually considered agriculture before as a career. But researching for agri 4.0 spoke my interest in the field. And it fascinates me actually. So I think I'll just see what the future brings. Awesome. That's nice to hear. There's also a course in the University of the Philippines Spanish that is agricultural engineering. And we have with us some agricultural engineers today. So that's nice to hear Carl really. So I also saw Alison raise her hand. So Alison please. My plan after studying finishing school is to actually study the law and go to a law school because I think and in that way I can contribute to the agricultural sector in a way because one of the challenges that agriculture is also facing particularly the farmers is inequality and injustice when it comes to the loss present because the mere existence of such loss that are protecting the rights of these farmers is not enough. Because what's happening in reality is that these laws are being selective and favors only those who have the power or the money to violate it. So I think what there should be is people who really know the loss and make sure that these laws will be implemented fairly that favors no one. That's true. We are hoping that no one will be left behind not just by the end of 2030 but also throughout our existence. If anyone would like to add I am navigating my screen so that I can see Aliyah and Jewel as well. But if you want to use the raise hand button on your screen it's also fine. Anyone would like to add and if also I may add to the question as the profession or the career path or the life that you answer that you chose with just with a poll like for example as a lawyer or as an engineer or maybe someone who chose the medical field as a doctor can you share any ideas on how you can contribute to solving the global challenges that we are currently facing in the context of agriculture perhaps. So Alison mentioned earlier inequality and injustice and I also mentioned earlier some of the challenges like growing population, depleting resources, pandemics like the like the COVID-19 we have also climate change, environmental degradation and a lot more. So can you please just just it's not really comprehensive just a wild idea or an idea out there so rumor. Yes so I have plans after finishing school that I want to be a businessman because I want to take up even though I am currently under the STEM program I want to use my knowledge in this to be a successful businessman or even a millionaire actually so I can donate to other farmers in the Philippines so that they can have financial stability and our economy our economy will actually grow a steadfast not rapidly but slowly so that it can grow much more from what. Thank you rumor so yeah so we have the term agripreneur so we're watching out for people like like rumor who can assist on that aspect anyone else who would like to add on that discussion okay if there's nothing more to add this is actually a poll just for our students so we'll have a poll later for our attendees but this next two polls will be just for our students so just a moment I will launch a poll right now and only the students will answer this if you're seeing a pop-up on your window just please click the X button the question is do you want to be a millionaire the options are of course who would it no I'm quite happy with that I have right now and let us see I'm not sure what the deal what's the deal first okay we have we have okay I'll end the poll because we're we're we're getting more answers and we have eight answers right now um so five said they want to immediately have one million and one's up two said interesting that um no I'm quite happy with what I have right now and the last one said I'm not sure what the deal what's the deal first so of course um it will not be given to you but uh here's the deal actually uh and and and I want to ask this question to our students that for example right now you are given uh one million pesos to fund your science investigatory project I believe as high school students you have science investigatory projects um if you will be given one million pesos to fund your science investigatory project but it should be something that would solve a problem related to agriculture what's gonna be your proposal so like earlier it doesn't have to be comprehensive you just uh you can just throw in ideas and it can be as simple as possible but with impactful solution or on the other hand it can be as grand and ambitious after all you have one an imaginary one million to spare so anyone anyone who want to start I'm not sure I'm not seeing uh Jules camera camera right now and also Aliyah um I can see it now Aliyah so if anyone wants to start again there's no wrong or right answer uh all um it can be in the past by the way so okay because I remember when I was in high school I had the science investigatory project also that is related to agriculture but it's in livestock um so can I call on uh Ronald now I see three students raising their hands so I'll start off with Ronald yes um I think if I'm given one million pesos to fund um an investigatory project it will probably be to tackle climate change because climate change is one of the most important issues we have to solve right now especially since um most of uh the highest or the most significant world leaders we have right now neglect or probably dismiss the issue because they don't think it's an issue we have to tackle right now and we have to tackle for example poverty or economic problems but I really think that we should tackle climate change right away and I'm hearing that some leaders are seeing that by 2030 they might start but I really think that we should start this decade or at least in a couple in a few more years because um climate change is an issue and it has always been an issue for a long time and um it has affected many things and many things many fields in this world and um we have been seeing the changes its cost and um and I just believe that we should tackle that immediately thank you Ronald I also see Carl raising his hand over to you Carl I'm very interested in developing new technology that would perhaps have sensors that would detect the weather or this may be a dream but I want a sensor that can detect incoming tests or diseases so that we can limit it to a certain extent before it actually spreads yeah thank you Carl I'm sorry uh I'm not sure if uh it's just me uh but it it your audio was uh kind of broken uh a while ago can you please repeat the last sentence that you said detect and I I only heard detect and plants um detect incoming diseases and tests so that we can limit it to a certain extent before it actually can spread thank you that was heard clearly anyone who wants to follow Carl I see um Alison I'm not sure if Ronald is uh raising his hand again Alison first and then uh Ronald and I hope to hear also from Alia and Joel uh and please uh chat our tech if you're having problem with your camera or audio so okay Alison um I think my research would basically be about to address the depletion of the sources natural resources specifically particularly soil plant uh plant water uh that is really fundamental to the structure and um function of agricultural systems because historically speaking um the agricultural development only has a narrowly focused on increased productivity without really taking into consideration natural resource management so if ever I have a million uh pesos to fund a research I think it would be to find a more holistic systems oriented approach that integrates uh natural resource management with food and nutritional security awesome uh am I seeing Ronald raise his hand again okay yes I would just like to add to what I said a while ago and um I want to elaborate why we have to tackle climate change now more than ever because we might be looking at the peak of our um of our civilization if we don't tackle it immediately since it's down from here if we neglect the issue any longer like I believe that we should consider the children of the future um who are going to live in this world and they're just going to see the world in which we neglected the problems before and now they're going to experience worse and worse from there and this is why I think I really think that climate change is an important issue thank you for elaborating your answer um I hope to hear from Romer uh Joel and Alia as well um if you can acknowledge the question um I'm not sure what you answered maybe it's the second one that you don't want the million pesos but if you have an imaginary one million pesos and you are given the chance to spend it on a science investigatory project right now but uh the deal is it should be something related to agriculture um you can just throw in an idea or you can share something that you have done before it can be simple or a grand dream that you are thinking but uh you just don't have the best okay so I'm seeing Romer and Alia raise their hand let's start with Romer first and Alia please uh follow after uh Romer so if I were to have a one million pesos and I'm going to boost the agricultural improvement of our country I want to help farmers be more efficient and have more welfare towards themselves because what I have read on child fund farmers fishermen and children I mean in the PSA that farmers fishermen and children are in the line of poverty in the Philippines I want to help them to establish themselves and give them more prioritize priority towards themselves because they are according to our year they are the backbone of our agriculture so I want them to be more efficient thank you Romer that is very related to what you shared earlier that you want to be a businessman uh so Alia can you follow Romer so I'm not sure if the audience heard um what Alia said the audience kind of low but uh what can I just repeat what she said that she wants to develop something that will help the farmers to farm or um more efficiently is that right Alia okay you want to develop something is that like an ICT or a program or what what what's it gonna be Alia can you expand on that answer okay so let me just repeat it's a robot that will help the farmer do farming more quickly and efficiently um so Joel is also raising her hand let's give the floor to Joel I said in planting crops without using any soil and or it will just grow in the water using some minerals since yeah so Joel is talking about the depletion of uh natural some natural resources like the soil and um making the farming also more efficient uh by utilizing minerals um so we have some uh technologies like that in agriculture right now one is hydrophonics um and I guess Joel is also wants to talk about urban agriculture because uh she said that there are already buildings nowadays and there are no soils to plant the crops with uh on um so we're nearing the end of this discussion um I want to launch a poll again uh and this time it's still for our students um this question is um just to know if you're familiar with um what our speakers are gonna discuss today so have you heard of agriculture 4.0 I guess I know that Carl's answer because he mentioned this earlier okay I'm gonna end the poll because uh it's exceeding six uh votes which should be the case and um there is also uh that um six uh maybe all of them have heard of agri 4.0 and uh the reason why I'm why I ask that question is um it's uh the session two will also focus on some ICTs IOTs and uh the discussion on agri 4.0 um so there's ICTs and um some IOTs are available in the agriculture sector right now maybe some of those include um what you mentioned earlier some concepts and um ideas of what you what you mentioned earlier um but uh before that I want to ask um can you share as for those who answered yes they have heard of agri 4.0 can you share with us some keywords or maybe concepts that you want to share with us about agri 4.0 you can just share about keywords that you remembered when you encountered agri 4.0 and let's see if um we can tie it in in the discussion of session two can I have one answer I saw Carl and then Allison sorry Carl you're on mute so I remember that agri 4.0 is smart farming it is information driven and aims to improve productivity by lowering costs one objective of agri 4.0 is ending world hunger as some of us may be aware by 2050 we need to produce 74 70 percent more food today because it is expected that our population will grow to nine billion people and right now with seven billion people eight more than 800 million experience chronic hunger and if we cannot if we cannot sustain our current population today how so if if our population goes to nine billion so as as much as we need change we also need the efforts of the government investors and improving technology thank you Carl that's a lot talking about collaboration to solve the challenges that we are gonna face in the next few years so I would give the floor to Allison then Aliyah and then rumor if the student finishes you can follow uh similar to what Carl said agricultural agriculture 4.0 is actually about transforming Philippine agriculture into a dynamic um high growth sector that is essential for our country to speed up recovery especially considering that we are in the middle of a pandemic right now and if there is one thing that the pandemic had taught us is that we learned how to determine which ones really matter and which does not we realize that tourism can stop for a while businesses can close even education was postponed for a few months but agriculture has to continue so now more than ever do we need the do we see the need for agriculture to adapt to such drastic changes with new technologies and innovations which is which can be achieved through agriculture 4.0 Aliyah rumor so same as Aliyah I haven't heard of agriculture 4.0 but I have my information or my observation towards what at the Allison and who Carl said earlier so I think the utilization of technologies will be in use of the will be the most driving factor in the agriculture sector and they will be more efficient used and from based on from what I read also that it will be more cost effective and have more and will help farmers gain more agricultural gain thank you um before we end this session um let's go back to our title to our little I mean little painting through our imagination exercise earlier during the first part of this session we all know that the sustainable development development goals set in 2015 are intended to to be achieved by 2030 to ensure that no one is left behind the goals include no poverty zero hunger reduce inequalities among others in relation to our collective ambition our current state and the limitless opportunities how do you how do young people like you see agriculture 10 to 15 years from now at this point I would like to call everyone and I would like to start with aliyah agriculture 5 to 10 years having a program or an innovation to to make the farmers farm pretty or it will help them to grow the crops pretty roamer please follow aliyah so I view the agricultural improvement of our country 10 to 15 years from now I wish and I hope to see that our economic growth is improving rapidly and drastically based from what I have read again our policies and regulations are enough for the Philippines but it's the national levels and local levels that are at stake here so I want to see improvement in the next 10 to 15 years and our improvement as a country as a whole thank you alison please I think optimistically speaking with just if the youth learn to appreciate and acknowledge the importance of agriculture I think I can see this sector being dynamic and really improving our economic growth not just in supplying our our staple foods of rice and feed crops but also providing livelihood and contributing greatly as I said earlier to our national economic growth thank you Joel please follow so our future agriculture will use sophisticated technologies such as robots template chore and moisture sensors aerial images and GPS technology and those advanced devices and precision agriculture and robotics system will allow farms to be more profitable efficient safe and environmentally thank you that's very realistic um can you please follow ronald um in 10 to 15 years I hope that all of the goals the sustainable development goals and the objectives of agriculture 4.0 is met and that um we are able to implement the implement the technologies and um other innovations in agriculture in order to solve world hunger and um I also hope that there is no more injustices or inequalities in this sector and for justice to be brought to those who has who have still haven't gotten it yet um carl so I see the future of agri 4.0 as it is developed and evolved in such a way that world hunger would be declining and food production would be efficient such that rather than just gaining profits production of food is focused on providing the necessity for the people yeah thank you did I miss anyone no okay I called everyone so uh thank you for that those are very optimistic um vision for the Philippine agriculture sector we are hoping for your active involvement through your profession through the professions that we will be taking in the future thank you very much we discussed some challenges that includes making farming equitable more equitable and more sustainable in terms of the efficient use of resources and also protecting the environment at that we also talked about some stigma and some solutions on how we can address those um challenges um we launched a poll earlier if you would want to get one million pesos what would you do with that in in your current capacity um like a science investigatory project and we heard some ideas ranging from business and um again relating to making farming more equitable and also making farming more efficient in terms of um including uh programs uh robots uh drones I I heard earlier um and thank you very much for that um again we will discuss some technologies uh ICT internet of things and some concepts related to agri 4.0 in the next session and right now please accept our sincerest gratitude Aliyah Allison Carl Joel Romer and Ronald thank you for actively participating this ends our session one let me turn this over to our next host and moderator for session two Martin please take it away hi thanks Gene uh for that um that was such an interesting discussion with uh with the students um you know it's refreshing to hear some of these out of the box ideas uh from from from the younger generation on how we can really like modernize and transform agriculture um as we strive to kind of future proof our food systems I think you know when I when I was when I was 16 years old I was not it was not really the first thing on on my mind so it's really great to see some of these really bright minds um thinking thinking about these things on how we can future proof our food systems um so we're now going into the second part of our webinar um but but first I want to say hi to our live audience good morning good afternoon good evening uh depending on where you are I'm Martin Packer I'm the senior manager for advocacy and brand uh at Erie and I'll be your emcee and moderator for the for the second session um which is on experience sharing technical and deployment challenges and in developing an agri 4.0 um but before I proceed I'd like to know where our viewers are tuned in from um so my colleagues are going to be launching a poll right now um so please share with us um where are you from where are you watching this webinar so please take a moment to um to fill that in thank you thank you everyone um so we're delighted to have you here with us today do we do we have uh do we have a result a result from the poll all of us from Asia all right so it is so it is just a good morning still a good morning for everyone um thank you thank you very much um so to continue this session is designed to be um kind of like an avenue for for mutual learning uh through information exchange and sharing of experiences and developing and deploying agri 4.0 or or information communication technologies ICT and in particular we will we're going to be hearing from from our speakers uh some examples of these digital tools and and the innovations in the ag sector so um so this session is going to be divided into four parts um the first part will focus on on some overviews of specific technologies um which have been developed by academia by government offices uh under the department of agriculture um by eerie and then also by the private sector so we've got so we've got a good group of all of these representatives uh together today to be to be speaking about them um and so each speaker will have we'll have 10 minutes I'll be I'll be very strict in timekeeping um and then we'll proceed to a moderated discussion where I'll ask one question to each of our panelists and then two questions for for everyone and after that we'll open up the floor to questions from our audience so you can send in your questions through the chat box uh found on your screen and we'll try to accommodate as many as we can um time and volume permitting towards the end of the session and at the end of the session Dr Manuel Jose Regalado from the Philippine Rice Research Institute Phil Rice will wrap up the discussion and deliver a closing message so to officially start session two let me briefly introduce our first speaker who is engineer Tony Ann May Salcedo who is a senior science who's a senior science research specialist at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños uh engineer Salcedo will discuss uh smarter technologies for crop water management the floor is yours engineer Salcedo thank you Martin so I will um share my screen hello so um good morning everyone I am Tony Ann May Salcedo one of the researchers of Project Sarai and I am here to discuss the different technologies that are being crop water management smart technology smart technologies for crop water management has developed let us first discuss the current status of water allocation in the Philippines being an archipelagic country the Philippines is endowed with the abundance of water we have about 400 more than 400 billion cubic meters of water um per year and around 90 billion cubic meters is withdrawn annually for the domestic the industrial and the agricultural sector 80 percent of the total volume of water withdrawn is allotted for agriculture and 98.6 percent of this is intended for irrigation alone um despite having the largest consumption of fresh water agriculture is the least priority among the sectors and with the increasing population and urbanization there is a competition for limited water resources in order we in order uh we need to address in order for us to address this we need to have better irrigation management strategies there are different smart crop water technologies being developed and promoted to farmers for them to practice smart irrigation which is applying the right amount of water to crops at the right time and place this practice will help our farmers optimize their production and will also minimize the adverse effects of untimely irrigation our team um project to serai project 2.3 has developed and is promoting a couple of technologies for smart irrigation one is the use of a net monitor for evapotranspiration-based irrigation scheduling and the other is the wise let us first start with the thermometer an thermometer is an instrument developed by et cage that measures the actual evapotranspiration in the area the measurements from this instrument can be used for evapotranspiration-based irrigation scheduling an thermometer has uh different cards it has a diffusion cover that simulates the crop canopy uh wet porous ceramic cup that mimics crop evapotranspiration uh water gauge for manually monitoring the water change in water level and it can also be equipped with a data logger for automatic recording of the change in water levels in the thermometer it up it works as um as a water evaporates from the ceramic cup it creates an upward pull that causes a change in the water level in the gauge tube and this change in the water level represents the rate of evapotranspiration which we can then use for our irrigation scheduling it is also recommended to calibrate this instrument to empirical formulas um to get more accurate results which we will then use to estimate the amount of crop that we need to apply to our crops given the evapotranspiration measurements from the thermometer um agro-material parameters from an aws or a nearby weather station our team has developed the sarai inko calculator it is an evapotranspiration-based irrigation scheduling web application where the user can create their own account for them to record and monitor the evapotranspiration measurements from their station um for um generation of irrigation advisories as you can see here uh the user can create um they can customize their accounts based on farm crop um soil information and the station where they will be getting their data the end user will also have to input in um regularly the evapotranspiration measurements from their thermometer or agro-material parameters from stations weather stations for the system to analyze and to generate an indication advisory and give recommendations on when and how much water to irrigate our crops the next technology that our team has developed is a soil moisture monitoring tool called WAIS or water advisory for irrigation scheduling system WAIS is composed of a field unit and a computer software the field unit has a has is comprised of soil moisture sensors a transmitting data logger and a solid panel the sensors are installed at different depths depending on the effective routine of the crop planted it continues to measure the soil moisture uh in the field and we'll send this information or transmit this information to the WAIS server via mobile network in the WAIS server um information or data from field units will be analyzed and it will generate an irrigation advisory and recommendation on how much to irrigate and when to irrigate via text message it will send this information via text message to the ancestors and so now that we have all this technologies developed of course there were some challenges that our team encountered first um let's first um see the uh during the conception of the technologies of course before we were able to design or have an idea on what we want to develop we first had to identify what were our goals what um issues do we want to address with these technologies so first is we want to help increase crop production and we also want to promote smart irrigation to our farmers to improve their water use efficiency so now that we have these goals in mind we were then able to design and develop uh our technologies of course there were also um some challenges during this during the development stage of these technologies first is in the design and assembly of the field unit or the WAIS field unit we had some um challenges we found it quite laborious since we had to manually put together um the different parts and components of this of the field unit and there were some there were also some concerns on the availability and accuracy of this off-the-shelf um components another is in the coding and programming of the WAIS software and the um web application so um there is a need to um debug and upgrade the system regularly and based on observations during field testing and validation um we also encountered some issues on the availability of crop and soil information since we will need those for the for the analysis of the systems in the testing and validation of our technologies some of the challenges of being encountered is first in the establishment of the site and the identification and isolation of issues and errors that occur during field testing and in the validation of the advisories provided by the WAIS software and the uh um web application lastly is in the deployment of these technologies uh some of the concerns that arise when whenever we um discuss the deployment of our technologies is first in the affordability of the system of course when we were trying to develop and design um WAIS for example we wanted it to be affordable and to be cheaper than commercially available soil moisture sensors but of course farmers are are quite hesitant to invest on on systems that on new technologies that they have not seen firsthand the performance and the workability and have not understand how this will help them improve their production hence the the challenge in the widespread adoption of these new technologies I think this is where um national government agencies or LGUs can come into play um through them they will be able to help promote um projects and developments from short term from short term projects like Sarai um and to help our farmers adopt to this uh adopt these technologies for their um for improvement and efficiency in their farming activities and the government or the LGUs can also help um us in the monitoring of the long-term effect of these technologies to the farmers and to the agricultural sector as well. Engineer Salcedo may I request one more minute to wrap up please? I guess so actually I'm already done so that's it for my presentation thank you and have a nice day. Fantastic thank you thank you engineer Salcedo for giving us that overview of a very wise wise technology um in projects Sarai uh so our next speaker is Mr Jovino de Dios apologize if I if I haven't uh pronounced it correctly um supervising science research specialists for soil and water science at Phil Rice. Mr de Dios will share with us an overview of Phil Rice's information system or prism and their experience in developing this this technology. Mr de Dios please proceed with your presentation. Hello good morning can I share my screen? Absolutely yes. Is it clear now? Yes I'm thinking if you if you would if you could put it on full screen it would uh it would be yes. So good morning thank you very much for inviting us to share with you and talk about the experience of prism and yeah I'm Jovino de Dios the head of the prism unit stationed here at Phil Rice. Prism is now generating rice information system using satellite. It is a mature technology that was developed jointly developed by Phil Rice and theory with funding from the Philippine government's department of agriculture. As our VA secretary said modernization in agriculture must continue because industrialization of agriculture is the key and we are now in agriculture 4.0 and the the agriculture 4.0 is well understood at these days even those students that are currently attending now as they have expressed their opinion and insights about the agriculture 4.0. Modernizing agriculture will make our farmers to be more productive farming to be more profitable and Filipinos to be more food secure. The Philippine rice information system has the vision of a satellite base rice information towards a rice secure Philippines and with the mission to support the department of agriculture in making informed decisions for policy formulation and planning for the provision of timely and reliable rice information based based on remote sensing crop modeling and information and communication technologies. Prism has started modernizing the gathering of rice production situation in a new real-time mode since its full operation in 2018 by using the state-of-the-art technologies like remote sensing or using the satellite AMHS, online technologies, geographic information systems, and craft growth simulations models. So Prism has this concept conceptual framework. First it gathers information from the satellite and ground data by deployed data collectors in the field facilitated by regional offices of the Department of Agriculture, LGU, and MLGU and PLGU. Then this data automatically conveyed to some computer systems for validation, localization, and storage and it can be now used to process data by rice remote sensing specialist, crop modeler, some cartographer, and some information manager. And of course it will end up into information sharing using the online technologies to target the users like Department of Agriculture, our partners, and general public. Of course information technology now embodies some data security issues, network computing infrastructure, and field operations systems procedures. These are the governing principles on how Prism operates. What are the technologies being used by Prism or the Philippine Rice Information System? First is the remote sensing. It is defined as obtaining information about objects or areas from a distance, typically from aircraft or satellite. In case of Prism, we are using satellite because satellite captures land images far beyond or in the outer space. It can capture a much, much larger area in a single shot. It can get a high resolution image of the whole country and a very short period of time. The next technology is the crop growth simulation models which uses simulation software that estimate crop yield as a function of weather conditions, soil properties, and crop management practices. Crop simulation models uses this technology with the use of computers. You cannot harvest the actual crop materials but you can harvest knowledge and very, very much ahead of time that you can get the same in actual growing conditions but waiting for a longer period of time in case of rice, it's around three to four months. But if you use crop simulation models, you can get the knowledge or the information on crop growth performance in a matter of less than one month or some other past computers can generate information in a matter of several days. Of course, this GIS or the Geographic Information System can analyze and visualize some spatial data and information using maps. GIS can place a bit of information in a map so that you can easily visualize and understand information where it came from. And of course, information systems or the information technology like a very, very much common now which is internet, it can convey message data in a matter of fraction of seconds in any place of the earth, wherein the infrastructure is existing. Now for the remote sensing which is we have two very common types of remote sensing. First is the optical remote sensing which the camera from the satellite gets its energy from a natural source like the sun. And this is very effective during daytime and for clear weather. What if during the nighttime or if there is some weather disturbance like thick clouds, the optical cameras from satellite cannot be used. That's why Prism are using this radar remote sensing. In radar remote sensing, it works at any time of the day and weather. At any ground image cannot be obstructed by clouds because the energy that is being reflected from the object is directly coming from the radar itself. While the optical it uses some natural lights like the sun and the optical frequency can be obstructed by clouds. That's why Prism is using the multi-temporal synthetic radar aperture remote sensing technology. SAR is a type of radar camera that can be used for capturing ground information in several multi-patterns and multi-temporal patterns. How does SAR remote sensing work for low land rights? We know that SAR or the synthetic radar aperture radar remote sensing can see objects beyond clouds or under the clouds or some other structures or even the nighttime. And now we are using this principle by applying in agriculture because during the land preparation especially in rice which is flooded the whole land preparation in rice production is flooded. When an area that can be sent by radar SAR is flooded there is no image coming back or reflected back to the satellite and what the satellite sees is black. When the young rice crop starts to grow some signal is reflected back to the image then the what the satellite sees is around gray or dark or it becomes darker and as the crop grows more signal is reflected. The image is becoming more darker and maybe light gray or light white as seen in the picture. Different SAR images captured at different times are being used by pre-SEM. This is to generate the what we call the low land rice cropping system signature to identify rice planted areas from any other crops or any other things in the land surface. As illustrated in this graph which which was mentioned a while ago during the land preparation the signal the radar back scatter is the signal this is the energy being sent from the satellite and reflected back from the surface of the earth. When the surface or the land mass has water surface in it there is no or very little back scatter reflected back to the satellite and if the rice crop begins to grow and covers some the water beneath beneath the foliage or the canopy the signal coming back from the earth surface to the satellite becomes stronger and the which is being interpreted as in the color scheme as becoming lighter and lighter and of course this is a growth curve if the crop begins beginning to mature some water in the field be subsides and up to the harvesting during the harvesting it is advisable that there's no um uh funded water in the field anymore and the color becomes darker again so this is what we call the low land rice cropping system signature this is uh different from upland rice cropping because upland rice cropping do not flood the field before the the establishment of the crop and uh upland rice cropping system cannot be detected by this uh technology or the system so we are using uh sorry to interrupt you mr. Adios could i ask you to use the next 60 60 seconds the next minute to wrap up please yes okay so we are using uh several uh satellite as uh presented in the in the slide and uh for for a one-season cropping to be uh generated uh we are using around 600 images uh these are some uh examples how the the remote land rice remote seedings being interpreted in a GIS and of course remote seeding needs some field work to collaborate some ground information data from the satellite data being which uh during the grand data collection we are using the smartphone in collecting some uh field information and of course based on the lift area index that uh is being captured by the satellite it can be inputted in a crop simulation model to estimate the crop yield and of course we have this infrastructure and the most importantly we have this uh uh data products the rice area monthly and in season time will uh can be laid the planting dates yield is damaged rice areas at risk during flood and drought and extent of areas affected by flood and drought or rice production situation in the monitoring field so these are some uh of our outputs that can be accessed from our website this is the monthly estimate of rice planting dates these are the uh areas that uh was flooded during uh tupito so these are uh map representation of some yield levels and we have some tabulated data we have also some graphical information from our websites so what's the impact of this uh uh project uh support data for dea central and they are opposed to strategize their operations it's also served as supplementary data to dea's decision and ensuring rice efficiency during lean months and in times of calamity um targeting of productivity enhancing technologies the rcf program in seed distribution projection of seed requirement reference for farm market pro farm to market road establishment scientific basis for our anti-proposals development of land use map so both then farmers competitiveness through the policies and programs created by dea so i think uh this is the last slide and uh my last word is our future is unrated we have to invent it we have to make it and make it good thank you very much thank you thank you mr didios for walking us through this um one of the the the department of agriculture's products and and i do apologize for having had to rush you throughout the end it's it's an extremely interesting and and i think you know we could we could probably speak dedicate an entire entire webinar to this um but um so our next uh and we will we will give the opportunity to to elaborate a little bit further in the q and a um our next speaker is is also from the department of agriculture um engineer patrick aspanto who is an engineer too of the agro hydrology and rain simulation section of the bureau of soil and water management or the b uh bswm and he will give us an overview of the bswm automatic weather stations and we'll discuss the innovations that are contributed to the philippine agriculture engineer expantio please uh expanto please take it away yep uh good morning can you see my screen now yes all right i'm just gonna press the presentation okay once again good morning to all the attendees of this seminar and before i begin i would like to do this myself once again i'm patrick aspanto from the bureau of soils and water management of the department of father culture and today i will be presenting about the automatic weather stations and how this aws can be used for agriculture 4.0 this will be the outline of my presentation first i'm going to quickly discuss the mandate of the bureau of soils and water management in the next i'll be discussing the milestones of the agro met presentation agro met stations and um the description of how this aws work and the importance and the uses of aws in agriculture and lastly the challenges and the way forward for the automatic weather stations so the bureau of soils and water management has a mandate and through our section the agro hydrology and rain simulation section under the water resources management division is mandated to facilitate and provide assistance in the establishment of agro met stations and other relevant instruments such as the automatic weather stations soil moisture sensors as sources of real-time microclimatic information in different agroclimatic and of course to process and analyze the collected data from these sensors the bswm as early as 1979 started the establishment of this agro met stations and included in the agro met stations are these instruments and the parameters that are being measured which are air temperature evaporation rainfall atmospheric pressure humidity dew point surface wind speed and direction solar radiation sunshine duration and cloudiness so these are the instruments that you can see in uh in a typical agro met station so for those students who are near the up los baños if you happen to visit the the national agro met stations of up lb or the one that are installed in in the eerie you can see these instruments so they are all manually manual instruments and the data are collected are also the data obtained are manually collected so looking from the perspective of the bswm we have these milestones so as i've mentioned earlier the bswm started installation of agro met stations as early as 1979 and from from that year onwards the first aws for automatic weather station installed was in 2003 there were four which was funded by the acr project and the next one was in 2008 so it was funded under the georgas project acr is funded by the australian government georgas is funded by the japan government and there are other funding international funding institutions the adrc six aws were installed in 2010 there were also six and the most recent one is from the us pl 480 fund we're in the bswm in collaboration with other agencies established 100 automatic weather stations so these are some of the pictures that show the installation of the early type of aws of the bswm so this one is under the adrc project this one is in negros occidental the picture on the right is from somebody is in sambuangan del norte one in camarines norte and one in bataan bataan peninsula state university so as i've mentioned earlier in 2012 we were able to get funding from the us pl 480 funding project entitled establishment of agro-material geological station in highly vulnerable agricultural areas tool for climate change adaptation and in the development of local early warning system so these are 100 new automatic weather stations and included on top of the 100 aws there are also there were also 53 uh pagasa and asti or the advanced science and technology institute of the dosd aws upgraded under that project and this this aws unlike the previous aws that were installed by the bswm is equipped with the telemetry system so the data that's being collected from the aws is transmitted to the web server and can be viewed the data can be viewed online by the users so these are some of the pictures of the aws funded under that project the us pl 480 so one in kagayan one in dabo oriental and the distribution of this aws are presented here so they are distributed nationwide from regions car to arm and most of this aws are are received by the lg or the recipients of this aws are the local government units some are from the state colleges and universities some are some received by the department of agriculture regional field offices and we also have installed three from the bswm research centers and aside from the aws installed by the bswm the department of the field the regional field offices of the department of agriculture also procured the same type of aws which are funded under the rice program of the da and they are being maintained by the da rfos and also there are aws being established by private companies like the avoidies and also some ngos like the rice watch action network and other government institutions like pagasa for various purposes and objectives that are most of them are overlapping so to just briefly discuss what is an aws so aws unlike the agreement station is a compact equipment powered by storage battery and solar cells and they are more accurate and dependable instrument for collecting climatic data and as the parameters that are being collected by these aws are similar with the data of the agreement station and these are the wind speed direction rainfall amount and intensity pressure rh temperature solar radiation sunshine duration temperature and the soil moisture so these are the the parts of the latest aws that bswm installed in 2012 so this one is a design done by the do st advanced science and technology so we have a different weather sensors so these are labeled in the photo and let me use the laser pointer so this one is the data lager and the data lager is powered by of course the solar panel and the battery so whenever the solar panel the solar the power from the solar panel is not sufficient so the battery is the one responsible for supplying energy to these sensors and we also have soil sensors which are installed at depths of 15 and 30 centimeters and we also have the automatic rain gauge so all of these sensors are automatically designed to get data and collect and get data so the data are once the data are collected it is transmitted into a server through a gsm or cellular signal and so these are gsm equipped and the server once the data are already in the server you can view the website or the data in the visualization website so this is the website you can find the website by typing in agreement.da.gov.ph and once you open the website there is a quick survey that you need to answer just to be able to know who are the users accessing the website and from that after you finish the survey you'll be able to access the data so the data can be presented in a tabular form it's presented in every 15 minutes and you can also view the data in a graphical form and we also have a simple analysis of the of the data collected you can analyze I mean you can see the report in a daily, weekly, monthly or even annual basis and we also incorporated analysis such as the evapotranspiration using the FAO Penman Monteith equation and another analysis is the moisture availability index which is just a ratio between the rainfall and evapotranspiration and the importance and the uses of AWS for agriculture 4.0 so this data the data collected from AWS can be used in many applications one we have the research of course you can use the data obtained from this AWS station to characterize the daily and long term map data and its effect on specific area of interest or research interest can be from can be an investigation of the ground water recharge from rainfall or from the crop water requirements or nutrient leaching so any any research topic that might interest you you can use this data to correlate the results of your research to the map data that is obtained by the automatic weather station and the number two is of course for agriculture it can be using the development of a crapping pattern and calendar based on the availability or lack of rainfall in a specific area especially if your area of concern has no available data from the synoptic stations of baghasa if you are fortunate to have one AWS installed in that area then you can use that data to develop crapping pattern localized crapping pattern and calendar and you can also use the data as a development of threshold values at different growth stages of crops or plant and use the data to relate the possible occurrences of pests and diseases number three the the data of the AWS can be used in disaster risk reduction and management particularly as a local early warning system for flooding and other met hazards and of course a tool for local climate change adaptation so you can you can use the amount of rainfall received by the AWS to to warn communities of impending hazards in the area and then number four weather based crop insurance application this can the data can be used to evaluate compensation against crop damage through improved calibration of crop losses due to abnormal weather conditions or extreme climate events such as La Nina or El Nino number five localized real-time and historical weather information this can be used in simple farm weather forecasting and micro watershed hydrologic analysis number six extension work the data can be used by farmers who are enrolled to the farmer field school enhanced farmer field school climate field school and so on to and the primary purpose of this data is to educate the farmers and the agripreneurs of the local data in their area and appreciate its application in agriculture and finally for instructional purposes so as I've presented before in in the previous slides the AWS one of the recipients of AWS are is the SUCs are the SUCs which helps the students to appreciate met topics in their courses and this the topics in agri-materialogy is supported by site visit for for better familiarization and appreciation of the topic and finally the challenges and the way forward of AWS so though I've mentioned that there are already a lot of AWS installed in different parts of the country and the agencies involved or who who funded the installation of this AWS and yet there there's still more AWS needs to be established for agriculture for local climate adaptation and DRRM and this data the AWS data that will be installed in the future can help people especially in areas where disasters are prone are more occurring frequently and the more AWS data the more AWS stations that we can install much better and then the quality availability and accessibility accessibility of this AWS data are still remain as a challenge so some of the AWS data that are being installed are not the data cannot be viewed online or cannot be accessed online so it's one of the pressing challenges and there are also privacy restrictions or data privacy restrictions that hinder the availability of this data to the public so that's one challenge and number three the after-sales service of AWS components so these are the parts the AWS parts are replaceable and they are also prone to to damage and repair so while the components need the repair it is better if the companies providing these components can also provide temporary replacement parts so that while they are under repair the data can still be collected and then one also is the strength of cellular signal so that the data collected can be viewed online so if there's a poor cellular signal in the chosen site the data transmitted can also be affected can be delayed or even worse it can be the data may not be sent to the server then continue capacity enhancement of AWS recipients on its maintenance troubleshooting data analysis and usage so these stations are also managed or maintained by aggregate observers for the purpose of maintaining the cleanliness of the station minor maintenance such as wiping the solar panel checking if there are some debris on the rain gauge so if these observers are replaced so the next people who will be in charge need the capacity enhancement not only the observers but also the DRFOs on the side of the recipients the LG use they need to know how this data can be used and in the analysis and used for agricultural purposes and other other purposes and finally to develop a strong collaboration with various agencies to expand coverage and installation and use of AWS so we need to like I've mentioned there's still need to more AWS needed to be installed and this can be done by strong collaboration with the other funding agencies other national government agencies so that the AWS coverage can be expanded and more recipients will be aware of how this AWS can be used so I think that's all for my presentation thank you very much thank you thank you engineer Espanto for for sharing for sharing this information about the automatic weather stations and the innovations that it that it's contribute to to Philippine agriculture our next presenter is engineer Oliver Silvele Jr who is an assistant scientist for soil water and environment cluster at ERI to discuss AUTOMON and then AUTOMON's based irrigation advisory service IAS engineer Silvele the floor is yours thank you I'll just share my just let me know if I can see the slides okay so I think Oliver you can also go to slideshow and show it that way too that's the first time okay sorry for the thank you so thank you Martin so today I will be presenting that about the AUTOMON PH base irrigation service so this is one of the component of water rice project developed by international rice research and field rice or the Philippine rice research institute in partnership with the Department of Agriculture Philippines so to start with this is the basic concept of the irrigation advisory service I hope everyone in the audience and the panel is familiar with the AWT technology or we call it the alternate wetting and drying technology so this is a water saving management of this which would help us save around 30 percent of the water use though currently the methods in implementing the AWT or the alternate wetting and drying are mostly done manually so what we did is to add a real-time automated monitoring pictures to this technology using the wireless sensor nodes or we call it the IOT technologies to create an enabling technology and then the information gathered from this enabling technology we wanted to make use of it for us to have an informed driven decision so we had a decision logic and advisory for this one it's a targeted advisory for different stakeholders so we have in here in the in the diagram we have three different stakeholders the farmers irrigation manager and then the policymaker so hopefully this decision logic and advisory will promote coordinated informed and empowered stakeholders and if we package everything we call this ottoman ph trace irrigation advisory service and why do we need an irrigation advisory service in first place so this is in the hope to address the following challenges so inefficient water use and management for irrigation uncoordinated ineffective water governance lack of sustainable scalable programs providing realistic solutions from field to policy and lastly lack of real-time data to drive decision making for irrigation and this by the way the conceptual framework for the ottoman ph base irrigation advisory service as you can see in the picture on the left on the right we have a pump irrigation and then the surface irrigation system so our system is able to cater different sizes or types of the irrigation systems on the left it's a small scale irrigation system and on the right the the large-scale canal-based surface irrigation and we're hoping to plant sensors actually not hoping we are planting sensors to these areas to get the information water information and then you can speak to the server hosted by the country government at the moment uh it is hosted by a Philippine rice species institute and then the information we gather from that monitoring will support an enabled decision for different stakeholders so the first stakeholders that we're referring to is the farmer community which were in their interest are water status in the paddy fields and also the irrigation scheduling and for the decision makers uh in the irrigation delivery their role is to know the water status in the command area irrigation scheduling uh irrigation use efficiency and coordination and monitoring so and the last one we also tackle on the policy makers so their role is to know the water and carbon footprint water demand versus water supplies water governance monitoring reporting and verification and this is the irrigation advisory service framework so it's this is more of like a vision diagram for us working on the ottoman ph so you would like to note that this irrigation advisory service does not only focus on the technology but also it focuses on other aspects like the agro environment we're in characterization of biophysical infrastructure and then uh social aspects are also considered at some point and this irrigation advisory service could cater different types in scale as you see on the column on the left large scale a national irrigation system community irrigation system communal and then the small-scale irrigation system in application you are monitoring different parameters for water and crop but currently we're only we are working on the water level in the plants to understand the demand so the information for this will be will be consolidated and then we will use data analytics to process the information and make it sensible information for different stakeholders on the right and then and then we're expecting that the stakeholders could use this information to strengthen the institutional the management the water management and the enabling environment and also the institutional capacity and then in terms of the ottoman ph flow of information we have the ottoman ph sensor deployed in different locations at the field or our target locations so and then the information from the the nodes or the ottoman ph sensors are transmitted to the gateway so this is using the sub gigahertz rf transmission and then the gateway will consolidate information then transmit to the server so the receiving end from the server is the sms modem and then the it will go to the database server for processing once it's processed it will be view viewable and the web app and we have also the option to send advisories to different stakeholders so we're sending a targeted information for different stakeholders so different information for farmers different for irrigation advice managers and then also for the policy makers and this is just a snapshot of the advisory for the farmers so in here you can see that the levels of the water in the field are given and for the later version we have also the battery levels for maintenance purposes and this picture on the left was taken from one of the demo demo for ottoman ph in the field so the farmers are trying to evaluate the features of the ottoman ph and this is the snapshot of the interface dashboard or dashboard so in the interface in the dashboard you can see different information here it's historical data of water and then also battery levels so these are protocols in both monitoring the parameter of interest that we have and also for diagnostics for the system maintenance and on the right are just the locations where in our sensors are deployed within the Philippines and the next topic here is positioning the ottoman ph sensor so we try to use the GIS or the ground technology for this to pinpoint the right spot where in the sensor will matter most or the monitoring will matter most so we tried to touch down on the different areas in the rice field the upstream midstream and then the downstream to get the profile of the water but the majority of our sensors are deployed on the higher levels higher levels so this is the elevation elevation map right away and in terms of the long term vision for the irrigation advisory service we are hoping to deploy and install 300,000 to 500,000 sensors sensor nodes across the Philippines for real-time monitoring of water water status and then hopefully this will provide an effective tool for policy makers to improve water governance by providing real-time data so this more of like a dynamic policy or you could adjust on the latest trends if possible and then national scale implementation of alternate wetting and drying using irrigation advisory to save water and also increase the irrigation service area so it's a good thing to have the uh hopefully to have this uh national scale implementation of uh alternate wetting and drying so we could save more water and then we could increase the the service area for for planting and then of course we have also our own sets of development challenges. Andrew Sylvela sorry um may I ask could I ask you to uh use the next minute or so to wrap up please thank you. Okay thank you so we have our own sets of development challenges so uh we have participation groups uh challenges power efficiency and then environmental robustness and and also we included the the cost so the the challenge here is to make the uh the the sensors more uh cost effective and affordable affordable to farmers and then uh in terms of the others challenges so we are more repertaining to the deployment challenges so we have the back-end infrastructure uh hardware manufacturing and development and then also challenges maintenance creating an enabling environment and then institutional capacity hopefully this will be covered on maybe the discussion later and then the last slide is uh thanks to everyone who contributed to uh the waterized project and especially the development of the the Ottoman PH as an irrigation advisory service thank you. Thank you thank you uh Andrew Sylvela for your presentation on on Ottoman based irrigation advisory services um now moving on to our last speakers we have a we have a duo um we have with us two representatives from the from the private sector from a from a company called Freeclabs um so the from Freeclabs Mr Christopher Wang is the president um and and Jacinta Plotinski was the managing partner um at Freeclabs which is a tech startup focusing on agriculture environment conservation and wildlife monitoring um so um we would like to uh we'd like to invite the two of you to to present uh on your in situ soil health monitoring for conservation tool um and the presentation I've understood is will also include an overview of creating a system to to monitor soil changes over a long period of time so um Mr Wang Ms Plotinski um please the floor is yours thank you let's get the screen the slides going so can you guys see the slides yes yes okay great um so my name's Jacinta and Akeba and I will be talking about um how we're developing an affordable in situ soil health monitoring system that will be deployed for the long term basically so conservationists and agriculturalists can gather data to better understand soil properties and health and how it responds to different kind of land management practices the um collaboration is a for there are four partners in the in the collaboration and each bringing a different skill set and um expertise here at Freeclabs we're doing the technical development of the system and the implementation we're working with the soil science department at Monash University here in in Melbourne Australia and then we have two key stakeholders one is bush heritage Australia which is an NGO that manages 11.3 million hectares of depleted farming and grazing land and so they're looking to restore the soil and the the ecosystem on those lands and the second stakeholder is Parks Victoria which is a government entity that manages four million hectares of parks and reserve lands in the state of Victoria in Australia the the goal of the system is to create an accessible and scalable um long term soil health monitoring system um we want to record how soil health changes with different managers management practices so we can um focus on developing better land management practices and this can apply both to conservation but it can also apply to agricultural farming practices so the goals for this stage of the development is to collect a baseline of soil data and then to verify that the data that we've collected using the sensors that we've um put together in the in the system um how accurate that is against a lab analysis of the same soil or same soil area we want to verify the accuracy of the data basically and then we'll be looking and exploring ways that the data we've collected can be used as an indicator of soil and ecological health so that's the stage for the pilot um I'm sure we don't need to explain in too much detail why we want to monitor for soil health okay can we go to the next one obviously we're here with many experts in soil and farming and so on so we won't spend too much time here um but basically um soil is the foundation so um soil supports the microbial ecosystems that sustain plants animals and us um but it also regulates um water as well as cycles nutrients filters pollutants um but surprisingly there's very few studies and equipment that quantitatively record how soil changes over the long term um so how do we monitor the soil health at this stage we're working with the soil scientists at Monash Uni to determine what properties we want to measure for the for the pilot so we'll be collecting the soil moisture at three different depths we'll be collecting the soil temperature at three at various depths we'll also be looking at CO2 fluctuation as an indicator of microbial activity the soil pH and then the ambient air temperature pressure and humidity um in the environment what we're not monitoring at the moment is the MPK levels and we'll talk a little bit in the challenges of how the selection of the sensors the characterisation in the calibration is one of the challenges of that we face in the development of the system so how are we going to do it what does the system look like and you'll see that there's a a base foundation that's similar to the autumn on um system that Oliver just spoke about so we'll have a number of different sensor stations that collect the readings and then use the laura wireless protocol to send it to the gateway um the gateway will then collect that data and send it via cellular to a server on the cloud um and that's where the data then becomes open source through an API um one of the challenges in Australia that we have here is Australia is a very big country and very remote so we're also looking at different ways we can collect the data for example if there's no soil coverage so looking at things for example like a drone that can be flown over and collect data from the gateways as well as also humans on motorbikes for example oh um so this is this is an example of the hardware that we've developed so far um so and the idea is that this is going to be an open source um platform for uh soil health monitoring um so an important thing was to have it Arduino based so that um it's accessible to people that may not be a specialty in writing may not specialize in writing software but um but have more of a domain expertise like you know for soil scientists and um conservationists so this sensor board has uh connectors for four soil moisture sensors initially um one ph sensor um initially we're just going to monitor the temperature of the top soil um and then and then gauge how effective that is and also like like mentioned before the air pressure temperature and humidity um we're also using a wireless protocol called laura which which is um a relatively recent one that stands for long range and it gets very good range and we'll be using that at either 900 megahertz or 433 megahertz which would get better range but we need to see how things go and um of course it's going to be solar rechargeable um so like right now we are testing out the system in their in its ability to measure uh the sensors and how sensitive they are at the moment we're using um soil moisture sensors that are commercial in retail um and the idea though is that we're going to we're going to develop soil moisture sensors um that that are going to be optimized for both like cost as well as accuracy and um a lot of the soil sensors have uh are kind of legacy so they're expensive because they use technologies that were expensive at the time they were developed which was like 20 years ago and so now it's possible to reduce the cost a lot and still use sophisticated techniques like time domain reflectometry or frequency domain etc and capacitive um and of course we're also doing a lot of the um wireless testing so this is just a quick little video um so the actual the soil moisture sensors are quite sensitive so you can see like um like you get a good response this is just in a cup of water and so what we're going to do is we're going to send it to um the soil science department at Monash University in order for them to calibrate to calibrate the sensors according to the soil the soil samples this is our cellular board um so we're already we've already designed a couple of them for our pilot one of our challenges is going to be in uh manufacturing so we'll be scaling this to initial small-scale manufacturing and then later full production and this works off 3g and of course one of the big things is range testing so with the lower protocol we're easily getting a kilometer we're going to try and get to tune it tune it to get around three to four kilometers which would be a good range that we can start using automated drones like that are periodic that collect data periodically um and so for our next steps so Jacinta are you handling this one yeah i'll grab this one so um the the next step is basically to run the pilot in early in February and the aim is to test the reliability and the robustness of the system itself to look at the accuracy and the of the data and to gather more of a wishlist feature for the second iteration of the the system um we uh as Akiba mentioned it's a small um run because one of the challenges that uh you when you're implementing systems is that once it gets into the environment many things can go wrong so we we try to isolate what can go wrong so that we're able to to fix it before we do a a bit larger scale deployment so sorry sorry to interrupt you i added something too um but um one of the next steps also is we're starting on the parts procurement for a full production run and the reason is because we need to start thinking ahead towards full production like at least six months in order so that once kind of the go flag is given that we're able to go directly into production but anyways so um so so they're the next steps and then of course there's always a few good challenges just to keep things interesting so okay uh so um some of the challenges that we face are uh basically the calibration and characterization of the sensors which you know like soil soil is notoriously hard to um to characterize because like each soil has different like is different and so we have to we have to calibrate each sensor based on the soil type um and then the other thing is that the soil calibration will drift over time and so we need to measure that and see like do we need to calibrate over time or can we um or can we uh make adjustments in software in order to compensate um another one is the corrosion of the sensors and so these cities will be in in the soil then they'll be in contact with uh with soil and so like there's a big chance of oxidation and um corrosion and so we're trying to mitigate that using different um techniques and also to not introduce any chemicals that will kind of leach into the soil as well or or any materials that will leach into the soil like Jacinta said um the remote deployment is going to be a big challenge uh we're going to try and avoid satellite communications because it's very expensive and so we're part of the project is also going to be in um designing uh designing custom drones for automated uh data collection and so and so these are called data mules and basically they'll just be kind of uh if we can get the wireless range good enough then we can just have these drones fly a prerecorded flight path you know once per day or once per few days and then collect collecting the data and so that's one of the things we're looking at as well as um doing non-contact data collection which would be like like somebody driving a car or a motorcycle and as they're going through an area then pinging the gateways in order to collect their data and just to jump in on the so one of the other issues here in Australia is the main telecom on telco here um runs the 3g network on the 850 megahertz band but they're going to be phasing out 3g so we need to think about future proofing it as far as cellular moving to 4g and so on in a couple of years yes yes and actually that's like you know like doing a 4g like lte uh cell devices is actually going to be interesting as well as some there's some low cost satellite technologies that are coming into play so we'll see how that goes um but yeah so also we need to worry about animals so animals like animals that shoot through cables so solar is going to be a bit difficult unless we have embedded on the enclosures and then also we need to make sure that if we have solar panels they're not going to get stolen and that's like a big issue too um and of course we have our like so luckily like we're pretty well focused like we're pretty skilled skilled in or have a lot of experience in the manufacturing side of things but we're going to try and reduce the cost of the system so that it's accessible because right now like soil health monitoring systems are basically considered scientific industrial and so there are thousands of dollars and we're going to try and reduce that to you know like to i think it's hard to say exactly but hopefully like a retail price that would be like under a hundred dollars so we'll see how that goes um and then um and scaling the manufacturing total full production so and that's our presentation so hello from i'm in japan by the way and jacinta is in australia hello from wonderful um thank you thank you mr. Wang and and mr. Plotinski for your presentation um so so now um now that we've learned about you know several examples of of digital tools um that are already known there have been a number of very interesting questions coming in which we'll address in a bit um on how they can really much more like directly benefit our farmers um i'd like to just kind of hear each of our panelists thoughts on on some of the challenges that you described um surrounding both development and deployment of these these icts um particularly for agricultural purposes um and then i'd also like to just maybe you know circle back to the title of our webinar today which is agriculture 4.0 and the future so not just reflecting on the past but also looking at kind of some of the perspectives from the future um we had we heard some of the kind of long term visions that were described um so it would be nice to to hear some of our panelists perspectives on that um and the future of agriculture um but maybe just to start off um i'd like to launch a little poll for our participants um for our audience so you'll see a pop-up on your screen and um and and we'd like you to answer why why why is the pace of moving towards ag 4.0 so slow so is is it the lack of back-end infrastructure or is it uh manufacturing and employment capacity uh investment capacity of farmers institutional capacity um or lack of an enabling environment so i think i'd like to know from from our audience um what you think are the the biggest barriers to moving towards ag 4.0 so please take a moment to uh to vote and um do we have some of the results already as we as we pull up those results i would like to thank the audience for um for participating in this poll um so yes here it seems uh that lack of investment capacity of farmers is the is the biggest barrier um followed by by lack of an enabling environment um i think with what what what we can see here is that you know there is there is a lot of back-end infrastructure and and and and not so much institutional capacity but really the the political but also the investment environment the moving more at the grassroots level so i'd like to hear from our panelists um and actually hear hear the same thing from you um so let's zero in on each of the options that we that we provided um that we provided earlier so um for engineer espanto i'd like to uh call on you um in terms of back-end infrastructure why do you think the pace of moving towards ag 4.0 is so yep thank you for that question well in the perspective of um the the government agency particularly the department of agriculture um the back-end is for infrastructure is really important for the adoption of these technologies so some of the farmers uh uh particularly here in the in the philippines or in in other uh areas of the country where um uh they are the farmers are not yet exposed to this kind of technology and how how these farmers are going to to adopt um the the back-end infrastructure is really important um in the sense that um they will they are able the the adapters or the farmers will be able to know how to troubleshoot um um the the sensors that they they use for agriculture so um uh the lack of uh uh proper training on the uh monitoring and maintenance of this equipment is also one and um yep i think that's uh one of the uh the roadblocks uh why uh the adapters or the the farmers um have a slow pace in uh uh adapting uh to agriculture or ict technologies for agriculture great no thank thank you for that and then i think for the the next option looking at at manufacturing and deployment capacity um i'd like to throw that to uh to mr. Wang and miss miss pluchinsky what is what where do you think um the pace what where do you think the barriers are in in moving towards ag 4.0 um i i think that like uh one of the problems that we often see is that there's a lot of kind of prototype systems that are developed but um there's no thought towards taking it to manufacturing and i think like um designing to get a product manufactured versus designing a product to be functional are two different things so and i think a lot of it is that like for manufacturing engineers need to work more closely with the factories and also go to the factories and understand how things are made and the other the other thing is if we can build up more of an understanding on the engineering side for manufacturing then it's possible to reduce costs and actually make a lot of products much more accessible as well as getting them into the hands of people rather than right now people are creating these systems but they're only able to deploy like you know five or ten at a time whereas like i think when we think of when we take on a project and we start thinking well how can we scale this to a thousand you know ten thousand and so that's where we um and so we kind of as we're designing we're kind of preparing for that and talking to factories and parts and suppliers so to add to that part of it is um access to the manufacturing ecosystem that um exists in in china which is where the suppliers are which is where the factories are and that can be from even import export difficulties it can be um awareness of what's what's out there and how to how to work with that so there's a there's a there's a lot of obstacles that people face in being able to scale to to sort of you know five hundred units and so on and it's a whole management process you you need resources to put towards that kind of scale and of manufacturing and that's separate to the deployment which is that has a whole another suite of of processes and systems and replacement parts and like you're building up a web of interconnected parts oh sorry i just like to add one more thing which is that um like in manufacturing i think it's really important and we try to do this as much as possible is to use off-the-shelf components and especially like and having like and having a lot of them available for repair and maintenance because i think one reason why projects fail is because as soon as they break and all all devices will break as soon as they break there's no parts for maintenance and people have are already gone and working on other projects so that's a huge issue for us and that's part of manufacturing is designed for maintenance no that that that's extremely interesting um i think i think that that that segues very nicely into into the next one where where i'd like to invite mr. de Dios to speak about the barriers in terms of investment capacity of farmers which also got the highest kind of rating in terms of the biggest barrier mr. de Dios what is your what do you have thoughts on that regarding the the phase of moving towards agriculture for point zero for the farmers point of view yeah i think investment and the type or the the land holdings of the farmers especially for rice is one of the factor in modernizing or mechanization that's why one of the a goal of the day for today is to consolidate the lands not necessarily the physical consolidation but i'm able for that some technical management it is very hard to mechanize a point five hectare rice land you invest in mechanization or some sort of a high tech equipment with that the uh piece of land i think uh uh that's one of the problems in terms of rice right no that that's that's a very good very good insight um and for um i'd like to invite engineer salcedo to speak about some of the barriers in terms of institutional capacity okay uh so i think um projects and developments coming in from institutions or like the university for example where i'm in um all these developments are aimed at propelling us and the agricultural sector to agriculture um four point zero however i think there is a disconnect in the technology transfer um we have a lot of we have these amazing products but the the adoption of the end users or the stakeholders is where it's um quite problematic um we the challenge here is how are we going to engage our farmers and make them interested in trying out this new technologies and applying it to their farm activities so um the the institution i think is capable enough to produce all these amazing technologies that will help push forward the agricultural sector into the digital um uh how the digital era so to say so i think the problem here is the the technology transfer on how the farmers will adopt this products right no no absolutely um then i think for um just uh to kind of wrap that up um i'd like to invite engineer silvella from from iri um to speak about the the lack of an enabler an enabling environment policy um as a barrier to moving towards ag 4.0 yeah so my point of view here is that all the points that our colleagues uh fellow panelists has mentioned actually contributes to the enabling environment as a whole so providing a back end uh support uh a good back end support manufacturing and development investment capacity for the farmers and then is institutional capacity if we have these on higher side this will provide a proper cushion uh for the enabling environment but then i think um policy also plays a big role in providing cushion for technology like agricultural 4.0 technology that we are presenting so the policy that we are developing will have a strong help uh to ensure like the sustainability of this agri 4.0 technology that's why we also part of our motivation for uh part of our motivation is to create a tool that will aid or support the policy shaping or maybe a data driven policy we could have that one but then i think uh yeah in terms of pace um focusing on the policy also helping uh shape our proper policy will also uh uh pass track the uh the movement for uh the agricultural agriculture 4.0 you're great no one one thing and thank you um thank you uh engineer silvella i think one of the things i'm kind of extracting from this is that there the any of these challenges any of these barriers is is not happening in a silo i think um a lot of the responses have have referred to some of the other challenges as well and i think you know it is a very kind of intricate web of of different factors that that really kind of pose this this one large barrier larger barrier to move towards towards agriculture 4.0 um so i think you know it as we move forward and and and kind of addressing those challenges and there is really the need for for a very holistic approach in terms of creating not only the the the demand but also the the enabling policy environment and also the tools to actually be able to to bring these innovations to scale um at a and then to bring it to a level that that it will really have the highest impact for for for agricultural producers um so moving to the next round of questions in this i would like to invite all panelists to um to respond um what are what are some of the uncertainties and risks in in digitalization um i'd like to maybe to kind of kick it off i'd like to to ask mr mr wang um to to provide your thoughts so sorry uh just uh getting my controls down um i think so also and jicinta like because uh jicinta and i both work together and we deal with a lot of um issues concerning um like technology especially in like kind of like internationally and um like we work with world bank so dealing with technology in places like the middle east or egypt or like developing countries it's um there's like the the challenges i think is just that there's a huge digital divide and so and there's a skepticism towards technology like especially for farmers if like if they've been doing it the same way that their parents and grandparents have done things then there needs to be a really strong incentive for them to change and so and i think like truthfully this is where um like probably government policy might need to come in because um you know like otherwise otherwise you know like and then well so that's one of the things and the other one is that like um like in the us there's a huge digital divide where uh large institutional agriculture like large farms have access to a lot of technology and data whereas the small farmers do not and so like and so i think a lot of the work is really identifying like where these digital divides are and like trying to even out the playing field and also um and also kind of explain the technology to people in terms that they understand and i think that's something that Jacinta and i try really hard to work on is um is uh speaking the language rather than using industry jargon on technology trying to speak in plain terms so Jacinta i would also add to that is that there's a lot of information and data that's being collected by this these different types of technologies so who has access to that and who's controlling that and so one of the things say for the soil monitoring project that we're doing is to have the data open so that it's can be used in a reference as a reference for other deployments of the system or the system itself can be um adapted in different ways um so i think privacy not not privacy but access to information and all the data and how that's disseminated is another really big big factor yeah i yeah i just last thing to add is like i think one thing that we do need to watch out for is um like large industry industrial suppliers tying technology and data to their products so only the people that purchase from them have access to it to that and i think that's a big issue so like we're a bit we're advocates for like open data and open source right no absolutely um engineers silvela and despanto um what are your thoughts on on the uncertainties and risks in digitalization for me um what are the uncertainties and this digitalization so i was thinking uh whatever is that is posed to the industry 4.0 or the uh the 4.0 in uh revolution so i was uh will be uh brought um to the domains of the agriculture 4.0 also so i am i'm thinking uh possible based on the security and privacy of information i think it's somehow related to the the the the the points that akiba and the syntax pointed out but i think in terms of security and privacy i think it's good that uh we uh think of it as a developer and we try to ensure that we ensure that we have this security and privacy in terms of our system well as we develop uh the different uh icp or uh agriculture 4.0 technologies all right and uh engineer espanto yep i think uh the akiba and jacinta and oliva already mentioned uh um important points of why uh there are uncertainties and uh the risk involving the digitalization but i would like to add on the aspect of the capital or investment capital of the stakeholders um new technologies come uh very quickly you have a new technology today and maybe one two three three years after there's another new one so um farmers uh or stakeholders can't cope with the advancement of these technologies and the while they are still learning the the recent one in one or two three four years there will be another one coming so that's one uncertainty in digitalization and of course the stakeholders need to uh first know uh why they are choosing to digitalize their farming operation or their farm activities so uh there's there's need to be uh information uh awareness uh the stakeholders need to be informed uh why they need to digitalize and if there are problems that will come um by uh doing uh digitalization in their activities uh there has to be uh support from the manufacturers support from different stakeholders different government agencies and if these things uh all come together then uh these uncertainties will uh be reduced to a greater extent so yeah no great thank you and and maybe just as a as a final um the final thoughts also from mr didios and from engineer salcedo about the uncertainties and risks in digitalization hi so i think uh digitalization will be an amazing um development to our agricultural sector however one of the uncertainties that um i think may hinder the the fast the the pacing of the digitalization is that the adoption of our farmers just like um what uh patrick said earlier um new technologies come and go so um farmers especially our older farmers will have a hard time trying to learn and adopt this new technologies and there are also we also have to take into consideration the farmers who are quite hesitant to sway from traditional practices since they're used to it this is what they know and this is how they will do it so we also have to consider them and in the development of these technologies and in the promotion of this new products also uh we have to take into consideration the the different factors such as the governance policies and regulations um and the we have to upgrade or improve our current systems uh farming systems to to match the whatever is going to be applied when we're trying to digitalize the uh the uh our agricultural practices that's it thank you great um and uh mr the deos any any thoughts yeah i think one of uh possible uncertainties and risks is uh uh going digitalization needs uh high high initial investment another thing is uh there which is related to security data security uh for example some abuse and uh misinformation i think that's how they can share all right great no thank you thank you very much um thank you to to all our panelists um i think your your your insights have definitely provided kind of our audience with that with a wider perspective on on developing and deploying agri 4.0 technologies but also kind of some of the factors to watch out for as we as we continue to utilize digital tools in the ag sector to address some of these global challenges um and so i would like to open up the chat box we're we're we're running a little short of time um so we'll try to accommodate a couple more maybe two two more questions um but as as as we wait for some of those questions to come in um there was one very interesting question that came in from uh i think it was one of our students that that had been in the first session um and maybe just open up the floor to our panelists on on what would you what would you recommend um you know looking towards the future and and these you know our student participants are the are the future um what what skills and what programs do you do you think or that could be developed by by the younger generation to to really um to really enable them to contribute to to ag 4.0 uh in the near future in the near future and and and the longer term as well but i'd like to just open up the floor to our panelists um to whomever would like to respond to that um i could say that like i feel like it's really important to understand um uh like i think the technology side is very important and especially like you know i think programming is essential but i think for agriculture it's really important for students to also learn about farming and how how uh how like how you farm and like how you grow things and what are the traditional techniques and because then you'll have a better insight on how the technology can fit into that whole flow like the worst thing you the worst thing to have is trying to push a technology like non-farmers trying to push an agriculture technology on farmers because um there's going to be a lack of understanding and um like well yeah so anyone else have any insights or or tips or advice for for students i would um to add to that i would also say actually programming experience is really important as well um even if you don't go deep into a language if you can understand programming concepts and ideas um and also even um product development concepts and ideas then you're able to have different kinds of conversations with people that might have more expertise in that in that field um so i think i i think depending on where you want to sit and where you you gravitate towards there's many different um inroads in it could be at a at a at a um level where you're interacting with the farmers directly and i think at this point there is is crucial um it could be at the product development level it could be at the data level so um exploring each of those um areas and of course our the the business our businessmen students to provide the investment environment as well would be uh would be very very good um do any of our other panelists have had any thoughts uh can i add the question sure so i think i'm on the same shoes with the students so actually i don't have a when i enter the area i don't have any agricultural bike background so probably we're the same same because my background is more on electronics so i was thinking uh if i arm on the shoes of the youth i think it's important that i would agree with the people that we learn farming and then the basics of it and if you have the skills of the technology which is uh actually embedded on our daily lives you have cell phones and then different technologies we're using so it's not that hard to uh to understand the technology at the at the moment but farming we need to put in some time there to understand the basics uh the importance of that is uh if you know the basics and then the details of farming uh if you are developing like a tool it will be effective rather than you have you don't have any information about farming and then you develop a tool or you have limited then it's probably end up a pressure technology in the future if you are limited no absolutely thank you uh thank you engineer Sylvela that um you know our the the the younger generation are the agents of change and are going to be the ones that that are really going to be the operationalizing a lot of and using a lot of these interventions that that we presented today um do we have any any other any other thoughts from our phone lists um i think what everyone has said earlier is like uh the the the main things that we have to consider when we're trying to engage the youth um in more and more in agriculture so one of the things that i think i would like to add is to encourage our um younger generation to look at agriculture not not as something like um like a dying like a dying um how do you say this uh industry or like it's it's for the poor or something like that um since i i know that most of the younger people nowadays don't see agriculture as something that's um that's going to help them in their careers after um college or something that will earn them money or you know uh so i think that's one one thing that we can help um uh the the youth uh right now since they're all techy we don't have the problem we don't um have really the problem in the programming part in the development of these technologies it's the appreciation for agriculture for farming i think that's what we have to instill on them so yeah that's it thank you no wonderful that that's a read that's actually a very nice kind of concluding concluding remark for our for our panel discussion so to conclude this session and and the webinar we also have with us dr manuel jose regalado who is the chief science and research specialist and scientist uh at at fill rise to wrap up this session and to deliver some closing remarks um dr regalado please the floor is yours dr regalado you're on mute good morning good morning okay yeah i actually enjoyed this webinar i learned many things including the perspectives and views of the students they're very interesting and um based on the discussions um i think agriculture 4.0 is already happening in other parts of the world even in the as asian region so while we are here discussing about uh things that concerns uh agriculture 4.0 uh we must start preparing our country for this uh new agricultural revolution next slide can you go go to the second slide yeah too during the discussions with the students we have uh several challenges like uh demographics one student mentioned about the world population by i think that is the uh second second slide please um population having of the world by 2050 will be with uh between eight billion people and 10 more than 10 billion people and then also there was a mention about natural resources uh management um because uh truly our natural resources will become um will become scarce and um another student mentioned about climate change and we have to do do can you go backward second uh after the first slide after the title slide yeah that so and really we're having problems producing food but there's a lot of wasted food and we have to also deal with this and all of these uh problems are intensifying the what we call hunger and food scarcity problem i'm particularly concerned about hunger not really the hunger per se but hidden hunger hidden hunger especially for the the children from zero or eight zero and to five years old because uh during this uh stage of growth of the child the it is also the time that the the brain um develops and by five years by five years of age the the brain has already fully developed and uh if the children if most of the children here in our uh in our country especially in the depressed areas are there's a problem with hidden hunger then uh most of them might have under developed brains which will result in um below average intelligence quotient and uh that will be a big uh problem for the philippines because uh as you know the median age of the philippines is 23 years of age and that means half of the more than 100 million people are below these eight and and a large proportion are in this eight from zero to seven years old so we must really produce enough food not only for the majority but especially for these young children next so to make these challenges we'll look for a concentrated effort among governments the government investors the and innovative agricultural technologies that and it can be done but you know we need to really disrupt the system agriculture per point always more of a disruptive set of uh technologies which uh next which uh can which will be able to be done with newer technologies in um the current agriculture secretary mentioned about um agriculture 4.0 but um next slide please the agriculture 4.0 must uh is coming agricultural revolution must be a green one meaning it is with a science and technology at its heart and uh it must consider uh both the demand side and value chains fly side and the poor of the poor scarcity situation using technology not simply for the sake of innovation but to improve and address the real needs of consumers and also to re-engineer the value chain next slide so this is uh in this column in a daily newspaper the da secretary agriculture secretary dr william dar suggested four approaches in technologizing agriculture under industry 4.0 or id 4 which consists of producing different differently using new techniques and using new technologies to bring uh food production to consumers and increasing efficiencies in the food chain and incorporating cross industry technologies and application i lifted the figure from the next slide please i lifted the figure from um agriculture 4.0 the future of farming technologies and you would see um these techniques or technologies um some of which were discussed today like um internet of things precision agriculture data analytics drone technology which are actually cross industry technologies are being applied now to agriculture and uh also using new technologies like vertical and urban farming and producing differently using new techniques like hydroponics use of bio biological plastics and algae feed stuff uh with the discussions have been in touch what will what's now going on but uh later you will see there are more technologies like desert agriculture seawater farming genetic modification like the crisper technology and have you heard about cultured meats uh first week of december i read a news about in singapore it was approved now uh chicken bite but it's actually um synthetic chicken it's produced by a company um called the u.s company called uh eat just eat meaning you eat just um maybe just because it's just because you don't you do justice to the animals that are being killed so when you eat this cultured meat you you will not think about animals being slaughtered and of course 3d printing which is and others are nano technology ai or artificial intelligence the blockchain and food sharing and crowd farming but uh while we all have these uh technologies uh let me end by saying quoting what are regarding the discussion about uh policy or the government through the da is actually uh supportive of uh in industrializing and modern modernizing uh agriculture that's why we now have a food security and resiliency framework and um and part of this will be strategies that will uh be using agriculture for point of technologies and um it aims to really have a food secure Philippines resilient Philippines with prosperous farmers and fisher folk earlier the when the students were asked or even asked were asked if uh want to be millionaires of course so who would not not who would not want to be the majority answered yes uh 60 more than 60 percent and um we wanted also farmers not just to be recipient of technologies but also be prosperous not only farmers but also the fisher fisher folks and in and i appreciate one speaker from on the sarah sarai uh Tony Tony and mentioned about uh the transfer of technology which will be part of my uh closing statement next slide i i lifted this from a phd student who wrote an article farming into the future sustainability and its stakeholder vision um it says agriculture and biological engineers want to solve big problems and there are many big problems for us to work on and being hunger ensuring adequate food production in a changing climate creating energy efficient and energy producing systems with zero carbon footprint and reducing agriculture of pollution to protect the health of people and the ecosystems the solutions will be diverse precision agriculture remote sensing automation and robotic hydroponic urban farming new genetics all those and more are the future of agriculture however while that technology is wonderful it is it's not the entire solution engaging stakeholders and hearing their views about what sustainable agriculture and agricultural livelihoods can look like will help us see beyond our assumptions to find appropriate workable long-term uh solutions so we must also engage the farmers other stakeholders and hear their views even even before developing this or introducing these technologies so that in the end all the race and our center please can be worked out for the adoption of these technologies that will lead us to an industrialized and modernized agriculture using the agriculture 4.0 technologies thank you very much for your attention thank you thank you very much dr regal for providing that that summary of what transpired today and for kind of the the thoughts and the food for thought i think that's it's it's very very good before we before we officially close the in the entire event may i ask everyone to just turn on your camera so we can take a group photo and and then we'll move with some some household announcements but let's do the the group photo first so if everyone has their camera on i will count to three and so we can all smile and make sure that our your hair is your hair is good so please thank you very much one two three all right thank you we will we will share that group photo with everyone so that that concludes our webinar agriculture 4.0 and the future and the perspectives challenges and visions i'd like to thank everyone on behalf of the entire every team and all presenters who tuned in to watch our online event today just a quick reminder for those who need a certificate of attendance please do go to the following web address so bit.ly slash agri for future eval to complete our short evaluation maybe someone could put the the web address in in the chat box so that's bit.ly slash agri the number four future eval and after which please allow the the eerie team to send your certificate of attendance in within the next week or two so again i'm i'm martin pucker it has been my pleasure and the entire eerie team's pleasure to to be your moderator and host today and please allow me to wish you a very nice rest of the day and a very tasty lunch thank you very very much everyone thank you thank you bye bye