ASPIRE...

“We decided that this will be held in SM Uptown because the target consumers are here. This place, there are high-end subdivisions around if you could see, mga high end, and they are our target consumer buyers,” Ansale said.

“We observed that in other places, people are coming or going there just to see and not to buy. But here in this place, most often the shoppers really buy the products, especially if they saw that these are the products of the farmers themselves,” she added.

Project Aspire has four driving components, namely: production support, enterprise development and industry support, investment promotion, and market promotion and development.

According to Ansale, the event can also help the farmers and fisherfolk increase their income, saying that they are expecting to generate around P4 million for this event, as the past trade fairs, such as the Agri-Aqua Trade Fair, showed a record of over a million peso income produced.

“We’re expecting to have more, like P4 million, because we are inviting mga investors that they will invest our priority commodities such as the coffee, cacao. If you could see both, there are different products or innovations in presenting the value adding of cacao and coffee. That’s one way of promoting products,” Ansale said.

“And also buyers tend to book products or they wanted to buy the products of the exhibitors who are here right now,” she added.

The overall objective of the project is to support farmers to become successful agri-entrepreneurs. The DA said that they hope to transform more farmers and fisherfolk into more competitive agripreneurs.