Central Luzon State University
College of Business Administration and Accountancy
Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija Philippines
LEGASPI, HANNAH PAMELA R.
BSAC 1-1
ECON 2206
“Not all classrooms have walls. Teach your kids to explore, live, laugh, learn and always reach
for the stars…”
Sometimes the best learning experiences happens outside the walls of a classroom. No chalks, no
lengthy lectures, no power point presentations and many more, that you can imagine in a
classroom-based setting. Sometimes one just need to have fun with friends, engage with the
environment, discover, gather experiences and learn from it.
Last May 3, our field visit inside the premises of CLSU University specifically; Small Ruminant
Center, College of Fisheries, Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) and Hydroponics as a constituent
for the fulfillment of the required activities in Economic Development made us realize how
traditional agriculture is continuously affected by the modernization and impacts of how
technology changed and improve the agriculture sector.
As we gone into our first station,8:00-10:00 am session, the CLSU Hydroponics, we’ve been
toured into the various facilities of hydroponics and aquaponics with Ma’am Rosette as our
guardian. The Director discussed how the new farming technique emerge, how can it be performed,
the vital process, the materials needed and why it is important especially in present times that we
are in the process of facing industrialization and urbanization in which land resources for farming
is one of the main problems. Also, he emphasizes the relevance of these smart farming techniques
as into the perspective of a business people. Venturing in this farming technique is good investment
because it increases the productivity of yielding crops with little use of resources, as a result, it can
provide higher and extra income. Thus, he also gave us an overview about the research and
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development goals that the agriculture sector in CLSU wants to achieve. In fact, during our field
visit there are crops that are under observation, unfortunately, we could only examine them from
the outside. Nevertheless, the first session of discussion left us fruitful insights regarding the
effectiveness and efficiency of Hydroponics and Aquaponics, one of the reasons why is that both
systems used around 80% less water than growing in soil, which is important especially with the
scarcity of water resources for agricultural sector.
Second stop, CLSU College of Fisheries. One of the remarkable events in this visit is the “Giant
Tilapia”, according to the assigned personal who showed us the Tilapia, it is in the age of 4-6
years. As manong caught the tilapia all of us were amazed and awestruck by how big the tilapia
is, the size was tripled or quadrupled compared to the normal ones that we can see in the market.
We have seen the different aquaculture facilities and discussed the farming timeline in the life
cycle of a Tilapia, how the genetics of a tilapia can be change and what is the effect of modifying
it. After that, we’ve went to see the equipment needed for the production of “Tilading” or “Tilapia-
Daing” these are small tilapia sun dried, it comes into a neat packaging amounting to 70 pesos
only, I’ve bought one pack so I could give it as a pasalubong and because the product is a “must-
try”. Before this morning session ends for our field visit, we lastly explore the fisheries section
where one can see numerous kinds of fishes like zebra fish, crocodile fish, janitor fish and fighting
fish that uniquely mates with its kind. We’ve just enjoyed seeing different fishes while learning as
a whole.
The afternoon session then began at 3:00 pm, our section’s first stop is at Philippine Carabao
Center (PCC) where delicious dairy products were being processed and sold. Our guide for this
session is Sir Reyniel and we’ve enjoyed his company so well. The smell of the carabao is not so
good but when time passes, we get used to it and complaints about the smell were gradually pulled
out. The lecturer gave us a background on how the carabaos in PCC were get into the stage of
“Paglalandi” they also hand us some magazines about the PCC processing and other important
facts. We’ve also got the chance to saw the actual extracting of milk from the carabaos.
Last station for the visit is in the Small Ruminant Center where several breeds of goats were taken
care off by CLSU. These goats are one of the sources of manufactured dairy products like flavored
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milks and ice candies. The speaker discussed and differentiated the breeds of the goats. After the
lecture proper we’ve given a chance to fed the goats with green grass and malunggay leaves. There
were cute kid and there were healthy adults as well, feeding them is one of a kind experience.
Overall, this field visit provided us an opportunity to acquire new knowledge and experiences in
an exciting and fun approach. A break from a classroom lecture that leave everyone of us how
salient it is to improve agricultural systems as building blocks for rural prosperity, economic
growth and development, a room for science, research and technology as a bridge for better
techniques and lifestyle starting from an individual to community to nation and as to the whole
world.
