The Manila Times

Coconut farmers acquire training

LEANDER C. DOMINGO

The Research and Tho”ght Leadership Department (RTLD) of the Philippine-hosted So”theast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) is helping boost the cocon”t ind”stry thro”gh road mapping and capacitating stakeholders in Quezon province.

Searca said it has started with the conduct of five-day back-toback training workshops on roadmap development and marketing strategies in its headq”arters here as part of the project titled “Development of the Coconut Industry Roadmap and Capacitating Stakeholders of Quezon Province.”

The training was attended by the provincial government of Quezon (PGQuezon) and the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) in Region 4.

Searca Director Glenn Gregorio said the training generally aimed to capacitate selected representatives from the coconut industry in Quezon province on the development of a commodity roadmap as well as in product marketing and branding in the preparation for the planned road mapping exercise under the project.

On behalf of the Searca director, Dr. Gerlie Tatlonghari, RTLD Program head, reiterated during the opening of the event that Searca has been actively involved in commodity road mapping activities in the Philippines and other neighboring Asean HAssociation of So”theast Asian Nations) countries.

She noted that in these efforts, it has become clear that the road mapping process is a complicated but effective way of engaging and ens”ring the participation of a wide range of stakeholders in crafting plans and strategies for the development of agricultural value chains.

Th”s, Searca contin”es to provide technical assistance to the national and local governments in developing commodity industry roadmaps that are inclusive and owned by the stakeholders, Tatlonghari said.

Lead Technical Consultant for the coconut road mapping exercise Leilani Briosos-McDonough facilitated the first training workshop on roadmap development with four major roadmap development topics: introduction to road mapping, the road mapping process, road mapping planning, and effective facilitation.

Assistant Prof. Renen Szilardo de Guzman from the Department of Agribusiness Management and Entrepreneurship, College of Economics and Management of the University of the Philippines Los Baños facilitated the second training workshop on marketing strategies.

In this second training workshop, the participants were introduced to the basic concepts of marketing, consumer behavior and competition, and trained in the use of various marketing tools for collaterals and online/social media content creation.

The participants in this weeklong event who were agribusiness value chain, commodity and industry experts from the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPAg) of Quezon and PCA Region 4 were also joined by members from the Pederasyon ng Samahan ng Magniniyog sa Quezon (PSMQ) and Provincial Agricultural and Fishery Council (PAFC).

Gregorio said these experts will coordinate and s”pport the process of the roadmap development for the province.

The Quezon province coconut road mapping team is composed of Ma. Leonellie Dimalaluan, assistant provincial agric”lt”rist, and monina Jacobo, OPAg Coconut Division head as Roadmap Team Leaders; agric”lt”ral technologists Lorenz Jude Crispino and Charlie Pagkaliwangan; John Carlo Llorin, administrative assistant, and Jansept Hello Geronimo, communication affairs officer, all of the OPAg Quezon; Yehlene Warain, project development officer and agriculturist marianne maranan, all of the PCA Region 4; and selected members from PSMQ and PAFC.

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2023-03-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://digitaledition.manilatimes.net/article/281732683722529

The Manila Times