“I am thankful to our speaker. This is the only training I attended where I didn’t feel sleepy throughout the training. I was so impressed and my spirit was elevated from the wisdom. I am grateful to my team for the effort. Thank you also to the staff of ATI because I was motivated in the process of conducting a program. I know that our expectations were surpassed. I am also grateful to the food caterer for responding to our requests. To my co-participants, thank you also for the relationship we created. This is not the last but it is just the beginning of our partnership. Thank you very much!” stressed Mr. David B. Andres, Chairman of Taloy Organic Agriculture Practitioners Association during the training on Pig Farming as an Enterprise for INSPIRE Beneficiaries of CAR held on April 25-27, 2023 held at the ATI-RTC-CAR, BSU Compd., La Trinidad, Benguet.
Mr. Edmund B. Benavidez, the sole resource person of the training exposed the following topics to the participants: entrepreneurial process and the business development cycle, how to identify at most ten (10) entrepreneurial competencies, and be able to generate farm business ideas. The resource person made sure that every participant will enjoy the training thus he exposed the participants to a series of game-changing experiences in order for them to enjoy and interpret the game relative to unlocking their entrepreneurial competencies.
In her overview, Ms. Lorna Sawac, Technical Support Staff of the Livestock Program said that the training course is in partnership with the DA-RFO-CAR with prospective INSPIRE beneficiaries as participants. She stressed that farmers nowadays should become farmer-entrepreneurs. She pointed out that farmers should view their farms as a business or as an enterprise. They see their farms as a means of earning profits. They should be passionate enough about their farm business and be willing to take calculated risks to make their farms profitable and their businesses grow.
Accordingly, there are two parts to entrepreneurship. The first is the managerial skills needed to start and run a profitable farm business. The second is ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. Both are important. She quoted FAO statement about managerial skills where these skills can be taught, but an entrepreneurial spirit cannot be taught. Many farmers are already excellent managers and many also have some of the spirit of an entrepreneur. As ‘price takers’ many farmers have developed outstanding abilities to make the most of their resources. But being ‘price takers’ suggests that these farmers are not innovative, do not take risks, and lack the drive that is usually associated with an entrepreneurial spirit.
The course is a result of harmonization with DA-RFO-CAR Livestock Program designed to enhance the entrepreneurial competencies/skills of the soon-to-be recipients of the INSPIRE Projects to be given by the DA-RFO-CAR for farmer associations in the Cordillera Administrative Region for the development and improvement of pig enterprises. INSPIRE stands for Integrated National Swine Production Initiatives for Recovery and Expansion which aims to hasten the repopulation program of the Department of Agriculture on swine which was greatly devastated by the ASF. The Regional Training Center of the Agricultural Training Institute in Cordillera believes that the enterprise development program is one effective support mechanism to improve the productivity and sustainability of the program. The 3-day course focused on the discovery and rediscovering of the participants’ entrepreneurial potential, creativity, values orientation, strategy development, project identification, and pre-business plan awareness.
A total of twenty-two (22) participants and soon-to-be beneficiaries of the INSPIRE Program attended the training. Surprisingly, the same number of participants attended the second batch on May 9-11, 2023 at the same venue.
