“CAPACITY BUILDING ON ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, &

ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT FOR FARMERS COOPERATIVE & ASSOCIATIONS UNDER F2C2 PROGRAM”

A NARRATIVE REPORT

The Farm and Fisheries Clustering and Consolidation (F2C2) Program is one of the 12-Key Strategies developed
under ONE DA which promotes the farmers and fishers to form into cooperatives and associations. With this aspiration,
the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office MIMAROPA conducted a training course, at the Vencios Garden
Hotel located at Calapan City, for participating FCAs from the first district of Oriental Mindoro starting from June 01,
2021 to June 04, 2021. The three (3)-day training course aims to capacitate the participating FCAs’ organizational
management, business management, and enterprise development skills towards building a much profitable and productive
FCA.
The program commenced on June 01, 2021 with 50 attendees coming from 13 participating FCAs and honorable
guests speakers. To better facilitate the flow of the program, Mr. Rustom Gonzaga acted as the ‘emcee’ of the said event,
while two (2) MAYA interns and an F2C2 program staff sat on the registration booth to manage the concerns of the
attendees and to prepare the materials to be used during the training . The program formally started, at exactly 9:30 in the
morning, with a prayer and proceeded with the national anthem, via a video presentation. After the introductory session,
the emcee acknowledged the presence of the honorable guest speakers to have their opening remarks and welcome the
participating FCAs, as well as, to give a brief explanation of what the training calls for. The first to give his remarks was
Doc Ozlek Olido, AMAD Chief, wherein he gave a background of the Farm and Fisheries Clustering and Consolidation
(F2C2) program. He also emphasized that, it is one of the crucial among the 12-key strategies developed by DA, under
the directive of its Secretary William Dar. After that, Mam Christine Pine, the Provincial Agriculturist of PGORM, gave
her warm welcoming remarks. She also shared some of her life experiences during her visit on some famous countries
when it comes to agriculture, such as Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. She pointed out her memorable experience visiting
these countries and witnessing how they boost their agriculture sector through “cooperativism”. She also added that, the
same concept of cooperativism among farmers and fisher folks should be adapted by the FCAs.
To explain further, the emcee proceeded by explaining about the F2C2 framework where he make mention of the
‘KADIWA ni Ani at Kita”, which focuses on helping the farmers market their agricultural produce and attract direct
buyers. He also quoted about the “Enhanced KADIWA” or E-KADIWA which enables the FCAs to avail grants issued
by the government, to support the farmers and fishers, through DA. Concurrent to that, the next speaker, in the name of
Mam Hazel Gardoce, an IDU Tech Staff, discussed about the important step on how interested FCAs can avail the said
grants through DA’s accreditation process. While undergoing her discussion, she showed samples of the documents
needed to be accomplished to the FCAs. After that, Engr. Elmer Ferry, the focal person of the F2C2 program, have his
message while discussing some insights about F2C2. He pointed out the great advantage of cooperativism and
enterprising, while anchoring his experience during his visit on the country of Thailand. Before the end of first day’s
morning session, FCA profiling forms have been disseminated to the participating cooperatives and associations, in order
to get their preliminary data.
The afternoon session for the first day of the training started at 1:00 pm, but before the speaker introduced the
first topic of the training, the emcee performed an ice breaker via a zumba dance where all the participants joined. After
the ice breaker, the emcee acknowledged the presence of Sir Antonio Gerundio, DA RFO MIMAROPA ’s Regional
Executive Director where he gave a speech about “Bayanihan Agricluster” of currently, the F2C2 program. The first topic
is all about the ‘BENCHMARKING’ which was presented by Doc Ozlek Olido. In benchmarking, he taught the FCAs to
humbly accept that their cooperative or association is not the best and they should learn from the ways of those in the
industry’s best. He added that this is simply to improve the cooperatives/associations by learning from those successful
ones. The next topic is presented by Engr. Elmer Ferry, where he discussed about ‘ORGANIZATIONAL
MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP, & VALUE FORMATION’. In this topic, he gave a deeper understanding about
organization, management, leadership, and values. He also introduced the “5M”, which refers to manpower, machine,
method, materials, and money. Acquiring all of these will make any FCA best among the best. Additionally, the speaker
shared the secret to a successful cooperative/association by embodying the characteristics of a champion organization.
After this, the first day of the three (3)-day training was concluded.
The second day (June 02, 2021) of the training program started at 9:30 am with a video prayer. For this day ’s
topic, the emcee himself was the resource speaker. Sir Rustom Gonzaga , (insert designation), creatively began his
discussion by giving his own life’s inspirational story. He shared his struggles and successes during his life journey,
which gave the audiences an ‘MMK’ vibe during the morning session. After that, the speaker proceeded on discussing
about ‘MARKETING & ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT’ as the third topic. He first gave some questions about
business, in which the participants are challenged to give an answer. During his discussion, he make mention of the
four(4) marketing strategies that each FCA should put into practice. He also gave a deeper emphasis about what is a
product and the elements for arriving at the best product idea. After that, he also discussed about the trends in using
‘digital marketing’, in which products are marketed through online media platforms. He also added information about the
‘GO PALENGKE’ platform , which functions as an online store of agricultural commodities. The speaker also give focus
on teaching the FCAs to adapt the ‘simple value chain strategy’ in which the raw material’s value is increased by
employing value adding techniques, such as processing, branding, and additional service. Before he end his discussion, he
also take note of product promoting techniques, which taught the FCAs on how they can relate their product and grab the
attention of their target market, which concludes the morning session.
For the afternoon session of the second day, the training started again, with an ice breaker, at 1:00 pm. The topic
was about Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threat analysis or commonly known as SWOT analysis. This topic
was presented by Doc Ozlek Olido, in which he said that it is very important to have a rigorous, comprehensive, and
detailed assessment of the cooperative/association. Moreover, he pointed out that the strength and weaknesses of an FCA
should be looked inside its current activities, capabilities, and shortcomings in a strong consensus. Meanwhile, he added
that, opportunities and threats are those trends and events external to the FCA and beyond its control. Given with skill to
identify the FCAs SWOT, the speaker have taught them strategies on how they can take advantage on the strength and
opportunities while disregarding or reducing the weakness and threats, thereby making use of SO, WO, ST, and WT
strategies. After the discussion, a hands-on activity about identifying the SWOT of the 13 participating FCA was
conducted. After the one(1) hour activity, the cooperatives and associations presented their SWOT analysis, on the front,
one by one. After every FCAs had presented their work, the afternoon session of the second day of training was ended.
The training was continued on June 04, 2021 at 9:00 in the morning where Engr. Elmer Ferry led the prayer and
proceeded with an opening remarks about the significance of financial management in an FCA. The last topic was all
about ‘BOOKKEEPING’, which is presented and discussed by Sir Ruben Pagarigan, a Project Development Officer
under F2C2. The speaker introduced himself first to assure the audiences that he is very much qualified to stand in front
and teach about his expertise. Before he proceeded with the discussion, a pre-test was distributed to the participants to
measure their prior knowledge about the topic to be discussed. He talked about the types of businesses and emphasized
cooperativism as a form of an profitable agribusiness venture, if managed right. After that, he taught the FCAs about the
basic elements of accounting and instill to their minds the importance of knowing about the foundation of this particular
topic. He also make mention of the proper accounting process, to be able for the FCAs to keep track of their cash flows
(capital, income, and expenditures). Then, he taught the FCAs on making a comprehensive financial statement by giving
sample scenarios that is happening in a cooperative/association. He also introduced the FCAs in a much deeper
perspective of accounting principles by discussing them with the proper accounting equations to be used, the allocation
and distribution of the net surplus, and the order of distribution of the cooperative/associations fund. The speaker
expected that the participants had absorbed all his teaching about the last topic. To test that out, he gave them a post-test,
to determine how effective was his sharing. For the afternoon session of the last day of the training, the speaker conducted
a workshop wherein the participating FCAs transformed their learning into an actual application. After the one(1) hour
workshop, the FCAs presented their output, which signaled the end of the three(3)-day ‘CAPACITY BUILDING ON
ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT, BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, & ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT FOR
FARMERS COOPERATIVE’ training program.

Prepared by:

ALVIN JAY D. CASTILLO

MAYA Intern