DAVAO CITY – Small-holder peasants and fisherfolk from Luzon and Mindanao will benefit from a multi-million-peso program initiated by international cooperative organizations and supported by government institutions for agricultural cooperatives that target farmers and other stakeholders in the countryside.
Among those who will be given the various forms of interventions by the Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA) will include those who cultivate coffee, cacao, aquaculture products, among others.
This endeavor will be realized through the grand launching of the Cooperative Development Program (CDP) of ACDI/VOCA Philippines, where 42 agricultural cooperatives from Luzon and Mindanao will gathered at the SMX Lanang, this city, on Sept. 14, 2022.
ACDI/VOCA will be joined by various government and private sector partners with the theme “Connecting Opportunities for Resilience and Growth.”
The CDP is a five-year program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
This program complements another ongoing project entitled “PhilCAFE” being implemented by ACDI/VOCA and funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Hence, a Philippine Coffee Expo (PCE) will be held thereafter from September 14-15, 2022, also at SMX Lanang.
Thelonious Trimmel, ACDI/VOCA Cooperative Development Program Manager, recognized the importance of market systems approach and collaborate with all industry stakeholders to move to greater heights in the various agri-enterprises of cooperatives.
He said that “smallholder farmers will truly benefit from this program by just linking the cooperatives to institutional buyers, at the same time address key risk factors such as governance and management risk and climate risk.”
This project will benefit about 180,000 members, whose primary cooperatives, where they belong, will be part of the project, and will have an impact from the menu of interventions – UPGRADE, UPSCALE and UPLINK – to be implemented by ACDI/VOCA’s CDP.
Interventions of the program are, but are not limited to, connecting to market and e-commerce, enhancing governance and financial management, value-chain integration, and enabling a policy environment.
The CDP will also leverage and bring additional investments from the government and private sector, to support coffee, cacao, coconut, dairy, and aquaculture processing among other enterprises.
This support for these types of cooperatives will further advance the industry forward at the same time sustaining the government initiatives such as the feeding program of the Department of Education (DepEd).
In a previous planning session with the program, Cresente Paez, Chief Executive Officer of the Philippine Family Farmers’ Fisheries Forestry Cooperatives Federation (AgriCooPh), affirmed this by saying “ACDI/VOCA is not a mere donor, but we can consider them as partner in agriculture cooperatives development. (PR/Cooperative Development Program)
