MUÑOZ, Philippines – The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) has completed the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC)-funded project titled "Building Capacity and Strengthening Partnership for Carabao Development Program (CDP)" conducted from April 2015 to December 2019.
Dr. Glenn B. Gregorio, SEARCA Director, turned over the final report to Dr. Arnel N. del Barrio, PCC Executive Director, during his visit to PCC on 21 January 2020. With him was a team from SEARCA that included SEARCA Deputy Director Joselito G. Florendo.
The project had three components, namely: knowledge management (KM), capacity building, and enterprise development, which supported PCC in upscaling its implementation of the CDP.
A KM Strategic Plan for PCC National Headquarters, its Regional Centers, and clienteles was developed through the KM component.
Under the capacity building component, nine local trainings and workshops were conducted for PCC Officials, regional staff and Carabao-Based Enterprise Development (CBED) partners. These trainings and workshops updated their knowledge on technical writing, reviewing and editing of knowledge products (KPs), and widened their knowledge on financial management.
A national conference was held to launch and pre-test selected KPs produced by the project.
An International Conference on Knowledge Sharing Forum was also organized to showcase the best practices of small- and medium-scale carabao farmers in Southeast Asia.
The project also assisted 17 cooperative-beneficiaries (13 in Luzon and four in the Visayas) under the Enterprise Development component, through provision of equipment, tools, supplies, and vehicles needed for their CBEs.
SEARCA and PCC are looking to continue their partnership through a second phase of the project to attract private investments for the cooperative-beneficiaries, develop carabao-based enterprises through technology innovations, and training of PCC staff to address competency gaps in business advising.
During their meeting, Dr. Gregorio and Dr. Del Barrio agreed to pursue the next phase of the project to focus on farm clusters organization, more outcome-based farm cluster managers training, and strengthened enterprise development in major agriculture corridors in the Philippines.
