Agribeshies kicks off in Q4 2018

THE first phase of the Agribeshies project, The AgriBiz Youth Club of Davao, is targeted to kick off on the last quarter of 2018, said Davao City Agriculture’s Office (CAO).

Agribeshies has an objective of exposing school-based agribusiness students to actual agribusiness management and hands-on training to be able to increase their interest on agribusiness. Aside from this, they will also be partnering with other youths in Davao City doing farming in different agricultural districts in the city – some of them out-of-school youths.

With municipal agricultural officers scattered in the eight agricultural districts in the city, they were able to organize 4H, the organization of youth farmers. Currently the number of 4H members all over the city has reached close to 200 youths. They will be part of the Agribeshies together with the Agribusiness students of the University of Southeastern Philippines (Usep).

CAO head Leo Brian Leuterio said the 4H members will be divided based on the agricultural districts they belong to. Per group, there will be at least five Usep Agribusiness students that will join them.

“On the first phase of the project, we will focus on capacity-building of these youths. They will be taught how to organize a business, basic accounting, what agribusiness is, and of course we will also have farm tours as well,” said Leuterio.

He said as this project is in partnership with Usep, the Agribeshies project youth beneficiaries will be guided and mentored by the Agribusiness professors and advisers from the university as well as some of the city agriculturists as well.

Currently, the project is still on its budgeting stages and will be followed by a memorandum of agreement signing between CAO and Usep. They target to start with the first phase before the year ends. Leuterio targets that the entire project may cost around P3 million to 4 million including the capacity building trainings and the project implementation.

On May 30, the ceremonial agreement and commitment signing was done at Gran Men Seng Hotel between the 4H members, CAO, and the Agribusiness students and teachers of Usep.

On the other hand during the second phase of the project, the groups are to identify and propose a market-driven project that they are expected to implement. Leuterio said the groups will receive a funding from the city government.

After going through the first phase which is mostly lectures and introduction, the Agribeshies beneficiaries are expected to be able to come up with an entrepreneurial and agricultural project. Leuterio said this will be a serious activity as they will also be given a chance to secure a business permit after and be fully operational.

“We believe it is a very good laboratory to experience real agribusiness exposure because they will need to collaborate. They need to deal with people and homeowners. They have to do proper documentation. They have to be registered as a business. This is serious,” said Leuterio.