MINERVA BC NEWMAN
CEBU CTY – The Department of Agriculture (DA) launched nationwide in February 2021 the DA-Mentoring and Attracting Youth in Agribusiness (MAYA) internship program that aims to encourage the youth to engage in agriculture and developing their skills and knowledge to become competent, highly-skilled, and employment ready agribusiness professionals.
“With an aging population of farmers and fisherfolk, we must continuously motivate, inspire and capacitate younger Filipinos to take on the challenge to help feed the nation, and earn in the process. Let us show them that there is indeed money and a bright future in agriculture,” DA Secretary William Dar said in his message during the virtual launching of the program.
According to the DA Facebook page post that DA-MAYA is a 24-week internship program open to all Filipinos, 20-30 years old who are graduates of any four or six-year degree course, preferably on agriculture, fisheries, agribusiness, and other related academic disciplines.
The internship program is coordinated by the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR). It wants to develop young Filipinos into agriculture-fishery entrepreneurships or possibly technocrats, training as future leaders of the Department of Agriculture or in their respective communities and local government units (LGUs).
“MAYA is conducted through experiential learning, or a learner-centric methodology that allows the interns to put into immediate use the knowledge and skills they’ve learned in a relevant fashion. To date, applicants reached more than 3,000 already,” DA-BAR Director Vivencio Mamaril said.
There were Initially 800 interns that were accepted from among the interested applicants that were deployed as interns at the different DA national and regional field offices (RFOs) for 24 weeks with a P20,000-monthly allowance.
After the six-month internship they may either opt to venture into agriculture-fishery enterprises from which they may apply for a zero-interest loan with the DA’s Agricultural and Credit Policy Council (ACPC) or pursue a career in the DA or any government agency.
16 CV youths start DA MAYA internship program
DA-7 regional executive director Atty. Salvador Diputado said that the MAYA program trains the youth to engage in food production and agribusiness. He officially introduced the interns during the Regional Launching of MAYA at the DA-7 regional office conference room in March.
Diputado explained that the internship has two tracks for them to choose from. One is for employment in government and the other is on “agripreneurship.”
For the employment track, the interns are deployed at the DA7 regional office while for the agri-preneurship track the interns are immersed at the Lamac Multipurpose Cooperative (LMPC) in Pinamungajan, and at PESTALES Agriculture Cooperative in Argao, Cebu.
According to Dr. Fabio Enriquez, DA-7 Research Division Chief and program coordinator that there were 89 youth applicants in the region but only 16 youths were admitted as per region's allocation.
Enriquez said that these interns will be exposed to an experiential learning at the DA7 office and research stations, and at the designated cooperatives. They will undertake a 3-month internship program beginning March until June of this year with a monthly allowance of P20,000.
“These interns will really experience, learn and be mentored to become highly skillful, competent and be a committed future workforce in the government and become competitive agribusiness entrepreneurs,” he added. (Photos: DA)
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