FOR THE THIRD time, the small town of Mina in central Iloilo brought honor to the province by winning as National Champion in the Municipal Category of Best eGov Business Empowerment (G2B) during the Digital Governance Awards Ceremony held at the Philippine International Convention Center on Nov. 26.
The local government unit first won in 2015 with a software entry: the LAN version of Municipal Agriculture Information System (MAIS) where the software intervenes in the management of agricultural production by providing data on the agricultural production in the municipality.
The second time was in 2017 when it entered an upgraded version called MAIS-FARMS or the Municipal Agricultural Information System – Farmers’ Agriculture Resource Management System, a web version where authorized farmers and encoders can upload their farm production records to the municipality’s central data bank. The data is managed using electronics and the farmers have real-time access to important information such as possible buyers and consumers of their farm products. The software connects farmers to buyers without the profit-cutting intervention of a middle man.
Again this year, the enhanced version of the MAIS-FARMS garnered the champion status. The enhanced web version allows groups of local government units (LGUs) to interact with each other through the internet and thus create critical mass or volumes so farmers have better bargaining power for their products, thus taking profits that would otherwise go to middlemen.
MAIS-FARMS is a tool using computer technology for storing, managing and processing information used to create marketing linkages between and among farmers of raw or processed agri-products. This is an “out-of-the box” solution that may be regarded as the missing link to address the gap and problems in production and marketing of agricultural products to ascertain the success of our country’s agricultural goals.
Mayor Rey Grabato, local chief executive of Mina, Iloilo received the Digital Governance Award given by the Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Information and Communications Technology and National ICT Confederation of the Philippines which recognize annual LGU’s best practices in utilizing ICT (Information and Communications Technology) for the effective and efficient delivery of public services to communities and business stakeholders. As added prize, an all-expenses paid trip to Huawei Headquarters in China for an international learning program for digital governance was also awarded by Huawei Philippines to LGU-Mina, Iloilo as the highest scoring Local Government Unit in G2B Category.
The Mina MAIS-FARMS was developed by the Local Government Unit of Mina, Iloilo through the initiative of former mayor Lydia Grabato in 2011 as innovator and author with the assistance of Engr. Xykster Pelaez, Municipal Agriculturist for his agriculture technology expertise while the web designer is Ameliane Encarnacion (webmaster) together with Charles Labordo as programmer./PN
