As most of the livelihood activities in the Cordillera are agriculture-based, inculcating rural entrepreneurship among farm families through Farmer Cooperatives and Associations (FCAs) can broaden their income opportunities.

With enterprise support from the Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development Project’s (DA-PRDP) I-REAP (Enterprise Development) Component, investments that restore and improve food availability, accessibility and affordability of priority agricultural commodities are provided.

From December 2014 to December 2022, 73 FCAs in CAR are now benefitting from 51 completed enterprise development subprojects (SPs) worth PhP147 million in total.

Among the 51 SPs, 38 are micro enterprises on restoration/rehabilitation and upgrading while the rest are start-up and upgrading small enterprises. These enterprise SPs provide support services to farmers in the form of facilities, machineries, and equipment including services on consolidation, processing, and marketing.

Benguet has the most number of enterprise SPs with 21 completed SPs amounting to PhP34.46 million, followed by Mountain Province with 10 completed SPs amounting to PhP30.63 million, and Apayao with four completed SPs amounting to PhP22.77 million.

In addition, four new enterprise SPs worth PhP36.5 million were recently approved in the last quarter of 2022 and are now under procurement process.

To date, the Regional Project Coordination Office (RPCO)- CAR have been continuously conducting monitoring and coaching activities as well as organizational development activities and capability trainings to the FCAs or Proponent Groups (PGs) with completed enterprise SPs to help them sustain and better implement their enterprise SPs.

Likewise, they are constantly being assisted and trained on several monitoring tools such as the Enterprise Operations and Monitoring System (EOMS) among others, which would help them organize and systematize traditional ways of monitoring the operations of their enterprise SPs.

In the implementation of the PRDP Scale-Up this year up to 2029, actors within the commodity value chains such as smallholder farmers and fisher groups, FCAs, clusters of FCAs, among others are eligible proponents of enterprise investments. LGUs at the provincial, municipal, and city levels are also eligible proponents not only for infrastructure investments but for enterprise investments as well.

Moreover, the project will partner with private business entities that are willing to enter into marketing contracts or buy-back agreements with partner FCAs/FCA cluster wherein they can provide cash/in-kind investments such as equipment, facilities, or infrastructures to the SPs. Financial institutions and insurance companies will also be tapped to help them with their financing requirements and insurance coverage.

Eligible subprojects for possible funding can be on input supply/sourcing, production, consolidation, postharvest, processing, and marketing. Proposals should be anchored on the Provincial Commodity Investment Plans (PCIPs) and Regional Agri-Fisheries Investment Portfolio (RAFIP).