Blog 3

        On the third week of my immersion (May 15-19), I understand how the manual way of computing the palay and corn stocks. I ask Mr. Stephen Araña why he has to compute it manually when the PCCS program can calculate it automatically. According to him, he needs to do this to check whether the result of the PCCS computation tallies with his. If there are discrepancies, he will know that there erroneous entries.

         

        I also learn how to generate the file containing the palay and stocks for Iloilo Province using the PCCS Program. After which the reports are send to the central office using the internet.

        

        I understand that the updates on production and harvest area forecasts of palay and corn are generated from the Monthly Palay and Corn Situation Reporting System (MPCSRS). It is a monitoring activity conducted monthly in-between Palay and Corn Production Survey (PCPS) rounds. Monitorings are conducted in February, March, May, June, August, September and November. MPCSRS updates the quarterly forecasts on production and area for the current quarter based on the PCPS results of the previous survey round. The data generated from MPCSRS are as follows: 1) Updates on current quarter’s production and area forecasts based on the standing crop with indications on crop situation; and 2) Updates on current quarter’s forecast on planting intentions based on actual plantings.

        

        Also in this week’s immersion I come up with the following observations:

•        There current data collection may be prone to errors because data collected from the area written in the survey form. The encoder may commit mistakes in encoding the actual values which will affect the results later on.
•      The encoding of stocks for palay and corn is quite taxing on the part of the encoder because there are so many survey forms.
•      The released of the Monthly Palay and Corn Stocks of the central office may be affected when the PSA provincial office failed to email their results.

        Also in this week, I started working with my paper which is prediction of palay yield using Regression technique.