Sustainable Mango Production through Innovative and Community-based Management: The Mango Tayo! Model

The Philippine mango sector experienced a steady decline from 2000 to 2022 across all industry performance metrics, including productive area, production volume, yield per unit area, and yield per tree. In addition, mango exports are not performing as well as they did in previous decades. Low farm-gate prices, inadequate induction and flowering intensity, a lack of farm-to-market routes, and a lack of pest control, nutrition management, and weather factors are additional issues that many farmers, particularly small-scale farmers, face. Responding to these issues, the Davao del Sur State College proposed and approved a college-funded program that developed an AI-based Smart application and IoT-based devices for the management of mango production, employing cutting-edge technologies in smart and sustainable agriculture. Thus, the program developed the following technologies: an AI-based Mobile Application to manage, the Soil Macro Nutrient Analyzer, and the Micro-weather Station. As a result of these developments, community involvement and activities were carried out to enable women and men mango farmers of Digos City, Davao del Sur, Philippines, to use the developed technologies. The program achieved its goals, including providing community partners with access to advanced farming technologies. Moreover, this program contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 2, which seeks to eradicate hunger by empowering small-scale farmers to increase agricultural output.