ESIP Project creates sustainable and inclusive growth in Eastern Samar’s agricultural sector
INVESTORS, business owners and government leaders came together for the first National Harampang (Visayan for “meeting” or “open forum”) entitled “From the Tree to Your Tray: A Market-led Approach Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Rural Development”, an investment platform and partnership building event held at the Marco Polo Hotel last November 14, 2018.
The event is part of the Enhancing Sustainable Income in the Philippines (ESIP) project, a 5-year intervention funded by Swiss Solidarity and jointly implemented by development organization Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation and People in Need (PIN).
Through the forum, the ESIP project aimed to attract partners and investors for production, marketing, and distribution support for farmers and agricultural micro-enterprises.
MARKET SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT APPROACH FOR INCLUSIVE GROWTH The ESIP project’s main purpose is to increase the sustainable income of 12,000 smallholder farmers in Eastern Samar and
improve their resilience to natural disasters. Eastern Samar was hit by super typhoon Yolanda in 2013 that ravaged hectares of coconut farms, crippling the livelihood of thousands of farmers in the province.
“Using a market systems development approach, we are able to address the root causes of market failures and meet the needs of poor farmers who come from the 12 municipalities that were most affected by Yolanda,” shared Adwyait Kumar Roy, chief technical adviser of Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation.
This approach has 4 facets that ensure long-lasting and largescale beneficial changes: sustainability, value for money, scalability, and inclusivity. “Because of the project’s interventions, 80% of the target beneficiaries exceeded their pre-typhoon income in the past 3 years,” said Roy.
“This approach is about empowering these farmers – supporting them in a way that
they can grow and develop their income, skills and productivity, and market linkages for the long-term as opposed to giving them direct aid,” described Claudia Oriolo, Country Director of PIN.
The first phase of the project started in 2015, while the second phase commenced in 2017 and will be completed by the end of 2019. “In an area like Eastern Samar, typhoons will surely strike again and we try to equip farmers with knowledge on how to react after a disaster occurs so they’re more prepared and can recover faster,” added Oriolo.
Using the market systems development approach, the ESIP project links farmers to relevant market actors and create a sustainable business environment that benefits everyone involved in the value chain.
The project developed a system of Local Service Providers (LSPs) who act as consolidators, consultants and business partners, supporting farmers with new technical knowledge and developing distribution channels. A total of 30 LSPs are currently operating across the 12 municipalities with 220,000 kilos of products consolidated from 3,500 farmers with an overall value of more than R7 million pesos.
DEVELOPMENT OF SUB-SECTORS Since Eastern Samar’s coconut farms were damaged, new crops are needed to be developed in its place. Homonhon Island’s calamansi cultivation is one of the thriving sub-sectors with 105 hectares of smallholder farms producing 405 metric tons a year. ESIP provided calamansi farmers with custom baskets for easier inter-island transport and introduced a better fertilizer that yielded higher quality produce. LSPs were also sent to Mindoro on a learning visit to learn new approaches in calamansi production.
Some of the outputs of these farms are supplied to Island’s Best Foods, one of the 30 food enterprises supported by ESIP. The company has the most modern processing facility in the province and can process 77 metric tons of calamansi in a year, turning them into export-quality calamansi juice and concentrate. Their products are available at Robinson’s Supermarkets and owners Lito and Rosario Amoroto are hoping to reach the international market by 2019. “Beyond Eastern Samar, we are now assessing to expand the scope of our operations but we are very interested in seeing other opportunities in the Philippines where we can apply the same development approach,” said Oriolo. “We will be staying in the Philippines until 2021 for a similar project on the cacao industry,” she concluded.