From farmers to entrepreneurs, Anini-y farmers graduates Farm Business School

Thirty (30) farmer beneficiaries from Anini-y are transforming themselves from famers to entrepreneurs through a participatory learning program known as Farm Business School (FBS).

A graduation ceremony and harvest festival was held on September 30, 2020 at Nasuli-C, Iba, Casay and San Francisco Multi-Purpose Cooperative (NICS MPC), Anini-y Antique. The graduates are agrarian reform beneficiaries and at the same time members of the cooperative.  

Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II (PARPO II) Florentino D. Siladan said the farm business school (FBS) program will effectively manage farmer beneficiaries’ farm produce and optimize their profitability.

On his message during the ceremony, OIC-PARPO I Ludimer A. Capague challenged the farmers to apply the skills and knowledge acquired from the FBS to effectively respond to present day demands in farming.

Established and implemented by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Training Institute (DA-ATI) and the local government unit of Anini-y, the FBS design develops capacity in farm business management among smallholder farmers, and supports the transition towards market-oriented farming.

Liza L. Diana, one of the graduates, said that she is grateful being one of the beneficiaries of the program because it develops his entrepreneurial and marketing skills and competencies as farmer.

The program ‘flexible-curriculum based’ approach has 25 sessions about farming techniques, marketing, business and action plan making, record keeping, savings and mobilization and benchmarking with review and learning session which started last August 19.  

When asked how FBS can benefit farmers, OIC MARPO Lucy Lin Gomez said that it can make a huge difference because it would teach smallholder farmers  who are basically the one’s feeding the world to become entrepreneurs, have better profits and have better quality of lives.

There was no program launching due to proclamation of the enhanced community quarantine. The signing of Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was entered and executed by and among the program stakeholders such as DAR, OPA, ATI, DTI, LGU’s and ARBO itself.

DAR’s implementation of Farm Business School in the province of Antique started on 2017 and now has a total of 135 graduates.