"The success of the PAT is in practical activities"

Mario Germán Azcárate, supplier of the Sancarlos mill, tells about his experience as a participant in the PAT training days.

Even with more than three decades dedicated to the cultivation of sugar cane, Mario Germán Azcárate knows that in agriculture there are no revealed truths. Therefore, it does not lose opportunity to acquire more knowledge and innovate in its Alsace and El Limonar farms.

First he did it with the Technology Transfer Groups (GTT), which he says "gave a complete turnaround to the way of transferring technology, because the knowledge began to be delivered to the growers and not only to the mills"; and now through the PAT, training sessions that he even attends twice, because he is a supplier of Sancarlos and Manuelita.

Technologies such as site-specific agriculture, water balance, administrative control of irrigation and so many others in which training has been done in the two years that the Program has been carried out, are not new to Don Mario; but not for that reason he has stopped attending the activities. On the contrary, he says that knowledge refreshes him and allows him to be up to date in the development of technologies.

“I, for example, use the water balance since before it was handled from the website, but that is why I did not stop going to the PAT on water balance, because one knows that the tools evolve and must be updated to continue using them in a way practice, ”says the grower.

Don Mario Germán follows the methodology proposed by the PAT and is accompanied by staff from his farm, who asks them to put into practice what they have learned, and adds: “They (the workers) on the march understand why the work is done in a way and how it should be done. And I, I'm correcting them. ”

Thanks to his experience, he dares to ensure that it would be highly beneficial for the adoption process that spaces be opened exclusively for butlers or farm personnel so that they feel more free to participate or inquire about the technologies with the technical assistants of the mills, but does not hesitate to highlight the high practical content of PAT activities.

“Definitely seeing things live and direct is more enriching than listening to just one talk. That I think has been the success of the program, ”he says.