Jollibee urges other firms to tap small farmers

MANILA, Philippines - Jollibee Foods Corp., one of the country’s largest food conglomerates, urged yesterday private companies to tap small farmers as sources for their supplies to help increase their income and boost the agricultural sector as well.

“The small farmers need more companies to open their supply chains. Empowering the small farmers to become progressive and independent make them effective contributors to nation building,” Grace Tan, Jollibee Group Foundation president, said during the 2013 Farmer Entrepreneurship Program forum in Ortigas City yesterday.

“Truly a life of abundance for small farmers can be achieved through collective efforts and private-public partnerships such as the Farmer Entrepreneurship Program (FEP),” Tan said.

Various farmer groups, and local executives and members of the academe from Agusan del Sur, Davao Oriental, Ilocos Sur, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan and Quezon attended the forum.

Local executives have discussed how FEP has helped the small farmers create a more systematic approach to farming that eventually led to their success in bringing their produce to institutional markets.

 One of these is the case of the Kapisanan ng mga Babae na Nagtatanim ng Gulay Atbp. or KABANGA from San Jose, Nueva Ecija. Through the intervention of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), National Livelihood Development Corporation (NLDC), JGF, academe and the LGU, the women farmers were able to deliver vegetables to another farmer group, the Kalasag Producers Farmers Cooperative from Nueva Ecija has been a JFC supplier for onions since 2009.