The Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday it is updating its electronic database for agricultural workers, wherein their individual information is crucial for the planning, implementation, and monitoring of billions of pesos worth of lineup agricultural projects and interventions.

The Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture aims to provide the agency with a systematic way of directly reaching and supporting its beneficiary farmers and fishers and serve as a reference for the targeting and monitoring of programs, activities, and projects of the Department.

“[It] dovetails its broader plan to digitalize operations to reduce costs in the food value chain, widen market access to make agriculture a more profitable venture, and, consequently, provide consumers with a stable supply of reasonably priced food,” said the DA.

Agriculture Undersecretary for Operations Roger Navarro said the department will deploy 16,000 staff nationwide to expedite the delayed collection, update, and validation of stakeholders' personal and farm data.

“We were supposed to finish this update last year, but we have so many islands to cover,” said Navarro.

According to DA, the latest estimates suggest there are approximately 10 million agricultural workers, ‘many of whom were identified as the poorest in the country.’

The department had an initial list of 1.4 million of these stakeholders before the update began.

Moreover, the DA is also enlisting local government units’ aid in data collection and verification.

“The registration and updating of records and profiles of farmers, farmworkers, fishermen, and agri-youth will determine if these estimates are correct.”

Meanwhile, Navarro said farmworkers shouldn’t be on the DA’s list of beneficiaries because they don’t own the farm or crops.

“Since farmworkers are only seasonally employed on farms, they should be on the list of other government agencies like the Department of Social Welfare and Development for proper handling,” he said. “We have to make a distinction between a farmer and a farmworker. This will allow us to cleanse the list for better use of our resources.”

Labor statistics show that agriculture employs one in every four Filipinos, the DA noted.