Baguio City – “We want our marginal farmers to graduate from simple production (of their potential crops) and become agri-entrepreneurs,” said Bernard Paningbatan, Project Support Office Luzon A I-REAP Component Head. He presented the business plan outline during the Training on Business Plan Preparation held on July 19-21, 2016 here.

The said training was attended by the Business Development Teams (BDTs) from the provinces in CAR. It aimed to prepare the participants on how to effectively formulate a business plan following the World Bank’s Business Plan Model.

At the end of the training/workshop, the participants are to submit and present their respective draft business plans for comments and critiquing.

“I suggest that you focus on assisting our farmers develop their marketing and processing facets more than the production process because they are having a hard time connecting to the bigger markets. Find out what are the product requirements of the different market niches as well,” he added.

The roles of said BDTs have been given importance in facilitating the pre and post implementation of subprojects under the I-REAP component. Accordingly, it is composed of a Marketing Specialist, Operations and Technical Specialist, Institutional Development Specialist, Financial Analyst and Management Specialist – all from the Provincial Project Management and Implementing Units (PPMIUs).

“Under Products and Services, focus on one or two aspects along the value chain – help them in terms of marketing and processing,” Paningbatan reiterated.

The participants were also encouraged to introduce product innovations of their respective provincial priority crops in their proposals.

Aside from enlightening them on the business plan outline, the participants who were newly assigned as BDT members were also given overviews on the PRDP in general, Social and Environmental Safeguards, Geomapping and Governance Requirements, Monitoring and Evaluation requirements, Economic and Financial requirements, as well as procurement guidelines and updates.

At the end of the activity, RPCO-CAR I-REAP Head Jocelyn Beray, in her closing remarks reminded the body that the same participants will convene in the near future to iron out their draft business plans in preparation for endorsement to the approving bodies.

“We look forward that the joint efforts of the BDTs, PPMIUs, RPCO and PSO whall be strengthened so that the Cordillera Region will be able to propose more business plans for funding under the PRDP”, Beray concluded. (Ma. Imelda Isabel Zabala, RPCO-CAR InfoACE)