Exposure Trip to Philippines

The Uplands Food Security and Participation in Markets (UFS-PM) project team conducted an exposure trip of “Experience-Based Enhancement Course” to Philippines during 23 – 30 November 2017. The trip intends to facilitate the learning of best practices on agro-enterprise development using the 8-Step Clustering Approach for the project staff. The exposure programme enhanced their knowhow and skills in developing the crop production, processing and marketing activities in project areas. This is also an opportunity to instill in them the entrepreneurial mindset, values and attitude needed to pursue enterprise and business development community work. Aside from hearing first-hand stories and experiences of farmers involved in the clustering approach, the participants were able to better understand how organising and management should proceed considering the different challenges that were faced by the associations, be it a newly formed one or has grown into a big multi-purpose cooperative. The necessary ingredients to making it in the market also looked into along with the different steps involved in the clustering approach. Other experiences on crop production methodologies, production module and product consolidation and marketing included.