MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) has launched a centralized digital platform designed to consolidate the nation’s farm data and streamline the release of government subsidies.
Agriculture Secretary Franciso Tiu Laurel Jr. said the Agriculture-based Central Data Ecosystem (AbCDE) Platform would allow the agency to hasten the delivery of farm assistance, strengthen supply chain monitoring and enable data-driven decisions.
“This is part of our digitalization, making our process faster. We should be able to register more, improve data accuracy and avoid duplications,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the program launch.
Instead of duplicate records and disconnected databases, the new DA platform will unify government data, track interventions, verify registered beneficiaries and monitor agricultural supply chains.
“For many years, our sector grappled with over a hundred disparate digital initiatives functioning in isolation,” Tiu Laurel added.
The platform also utilizes artificial intelligence to validate beneficiaries, reduce duplicate entries and strengthen transparency.
The integrated platform will also hasten the distribution of farm subsidies to five days from the current 26 days.
It will also cut the registration of farmers to five minutes from the 10-day period that farmers must wait to be recorded under the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture system.
The agency said that it has also cut the time needed to implement new support programs by 80 percent.
The $3.6 million program was developed in partnership with South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Korea Agency of Education, Promotion and Information Service in Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.