WESTERN Visayas - With emphasis on empowering coconut farmer cooperatives and associations to become advocates, decision-makers, and catalysts for positive change, ATI Region 6 conducted two batches of the Skills Training on Organization and Leadership for Farmer Cooperatives and Associations (FCAs) in Western Visayas last September 18-20, 2023 in INA Farmers Learning Site and Agri-Farm, Barotac Nuevo Iloilo for Batch 1, and September 20-22, 2023 at the ATI Training Hall, ASU Compound, Banga, Aklan for Batch 2. The sessions were participated by twenty FCA representatives from Iloilo (Batch 1) and nineteen FCA representatives from Capiz and Aklan (Batch 2).
The activity dove into the topics Overview of Coconut Farmer Industry Development, Organization and Leadership, Transformational Leadership, and Clustering and Community Organizing. The participants immersed in workshops to improve social skills and cognitive understanding of the topics.
At the end of each training, the FCA representatives were able to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of their respective organizations.
“The activities on leadership were profound and have provided a comprehensive impact on various aspects of my professional development. Self-awareness is crucial and the first step to personal development. It involves evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to gain better understanding. Goal-setting is also essential for the growth of the organization, mentorship to establish brotherhood, and guidance through individual experiences. Team building improves communication skills. The overall attendance to this training enhanced our skills and abilities to work effectively, individually and with a team,” stressed Albert Porras, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Capiz Rural Peasant and OFW Farmers Credit Cooperative.
Farmers’ Organizations (FOs), Cooperatives, and Associations are considered essential institutions of empowerment, poverty alleviation, and advancement of farmers and rural poor. Economically, it can help farmers gain skills, access inputs, form enterprises, and process and market their products more effectively to generate higher income. Organizing farmers can assist them in accessing information needed to produce, add value to products, and market commodities, and develop effective linkages with input agencies, such as financial service-providers, and output markets.
