Nabilah S
East and West Sepik provinces are primarily agricultural areas. However, one of the region’s agricultural advancements has been hampered by a lack of access to credible and accurate information.
In this situation, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) offer huge chances to improve agricultural innovation, which is vital for food security, income, and economic growth.
Some of the problems facing agriculture in the information age will be solved by new ICT developments, such as the widespread use of mobile phones, the rise of broadband internet, and the availability of digital applications.
These include giving communities better access to and using digital financial solutions to help them do better business and save money. Under the EU-STREIT PNG framework, “digital agriculture,” or “E-agriculture,” is a critical way to improve agriculture production, entrepreneurship, and living conditions in the Sepiks.
The EU-funded UN Joint STREIT Program recently held a two-day intensive training for teachers and farmers at Maprik Secondary School on Digital Skills and Financial Literacy modules.
Molland Saluali, Deputy Principal of the Maprik Secondary School, thanked the EU-STREIT PNG Program for helping the school’s resource center improve IT skills and work toward sustainability. He also said, “This training benefits us, students, and farmers since almost all of our students come from rural areas.”
This will give students a great chance to go back to their villages and spread the knowledge and skills they have learned. I think this will be a good start for regular support and a new time for doing business in the agriculture value chain.”
This project was well received and supported by the participants, who expressed a need for the rapid implementation of standard tools such as social media in teaching, collaboration marketing, and information access. Participants also noted that cell phones, simple technologies, and readily available services might provide significantly more significant benefits.
The training also assisted in overcoming some of the long-held skepticism about their applications and the value that ICTs may provide in their day-to-day practices in agriculture and banking.
Two days of training provided an excellent opportunity to learn about and apply digital skills, e-agriculture, and online marketing technologies in our education sector and community. Teaching individuals in remote areas how to use digital and social media platforms is a great idea. It will benefit me to teach students and farmers about what I have learned here. “I am extremely interested in continuing such training in the future,” Fredah Vitikut, a Business Management and Economics teacher who attended the training, remarked.
