LOS BAÑOS, Laguna: The Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) has reaffirmed the need to build a culture of agri-innovation in action among the Filipino youth during the recently held Nanotechnology Webinar Series Friday, January 20.

Searca director Glenn Gregorio, also a National Academy of Science and Technology-Philippines academician, has made an emphasis on this during the sixth session of the webinar “Empowering Young Filipino Researchers for an Emerging Technology Ready Philippines.”

Headquartered on the campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), Searca is a nonprofit organization established by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (Seameo) in 1966.

Seameo Council is the highest policymaking body which comprises the Ministers of Education of the 11 Seameo member countries of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam and associate member countries of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Speaking at the webinar, Gregorio emphasized the innovations for transformational change and how to reinforce a transformed agricultural food system in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

He said inclusive social service and protection schemes to all sectors, especially the women and youth; innovative new sourcing of funding and financing; and new policies on innovation, sustainability, and entrepreneurship are needed for policy innovation.

“Science and technology or S&T for social innovations to scale wider and faster, use of digital technology platforms for business models, and information technology (IT)-based education and collective learning are needed in technology innovation,” Gregorio said, adding that social innovation will come with public and private sector players adopting new ideas, strategies and practices to better meet social needs.

He also discussed policy recommendations to sustain the growing interest in agriculture among young people and to promote and generate more agripreneurs (agriculture entrepreneurs).

“We must encourage full participation, particularly among the youth and women, through several systematic education and mentorship programs with sustained incentives and innovative training modalities with social safety net systems,” Gregorio said.

He also expressed that young researchers must get themselves involved in more public-value-driven research initiatives that are geared towards strengthening the welfare of their stakeholders.

“[There is a need to] strengthen the agricultural extension system of countries and conduct integrative studies exploring how to capacitate local government units and agencies,” Gregorio said, noting that this is the key to communicating the plight of farmers from the nano or micro level of poverty to the policymakers.

He also noted that while inventions happen in universities or higher education institutions, partnering with the industry and commercialization is where innovation happens.

“Thus, innovation is the way of transferring research results into profits towards economic, environmental and social gains. In the end, let us all remember that what matters the most is building relationships,” Gregorio said.

The webinar was organized by the Philippine Department of Science and Technology (DoST) Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD).

The PCIEERD is one of the three sectoral planning councils of DoST mandated to serve as the central agency in the formulation of policies, plans, and programs as well as in the implementation of strategies in the industry, energy, and emerging technology sectors.