After a series of meetings and exchanges to develop a partnership program that will make agricultural cooperatives bankable and improve services to their members, Agriterra and the Landbank Countryside Development Foundation, Inc. (LCDFI) signed a memorandum of agreement on the empowerment of agricultural cooperatives for business growth and expansion last January 23, 2019 at the Landbank Plaza in Manila, Philippines.
The partnership aims to provide institutional development support to selected borrowing agricultural cooperatives of LANDBANK to improve, expand and diversify their business operations and eventually assist other agricultural cooperatives in the country that have the potential for further expansion.
In his opening speech during the signing ceremony, LCDFI Executive Director Roy C. Oscillada said that “the partnership will allow already established agricultural cooperatives to be leaders in agribusiness in the country and take their development to the next level.”
Agriterra Manager Agri-advice Cees van Rij said that “the partnership will give agricultural cooperatives in the Philippines access to knowledge and expertise from the top agrifood sector in the Netherlands. In collaboration with Landbank and LCDFI, Agriterra aspires to contribute to a robust growth of agricultural cooperatives which eventually will result in a better performance, higher yields and improved income for farmer members.”
There are more than 100 borrowing agricultural cooperatives classified by Landbank as big cooperatives in terms of assets and turnover and whose agribusiness activities contribute 50% to their total income. This will be the pool of potential agricultural cooperatives that will be serviced by Agriterra and LCDFI through advice, training and exchange in the areas of Governance, Financial Management and Business Development.
The programme also aims to introduce to participating agricultural cooperatives the utilization of new technologies to improve productivity and establish market linkages with potential local or international buyers.
Also present during the signing of the MOA were Chairperson Gerardo Victor J. Bulatao, Capacity Building Director Nestor T. Tapia and Enterprise Development Director Alfred Lindsey C. Mapilisan from LCDFI; Development Assistance Department Head Lolita S. Huerto and Jose Eduardo Mandapat, Jr. from Landbank; and Business Advisors Ben Luther P. Lucas, Rene A. Guarin and Marciano T. Virola, Jr. from Agriterra.
Agriterra is an agri-agency from the Netherlands that provides peer-to-peer advice to enhance the businesses of agricultural cooperatives in emerging and developing economies, while the LCDFI is a corporate foundation of Landbank that delivers training services to address weak areas of operations of borrowing cooperatives.
