ICOPED Trains Agri-based Cooperatives on Greening their Enterprises

Los Baños, Laguna – The Institute of Cooperatives and Bio-Enterprise Development (ICOPED) continues to promote green practices in cooperatives with a training-workshop on Going Green: Strategies, Practices, and Opportunities for Cooperatives conducted on May 10, 2017 at the ICOPED Auditorium, College of Economics and Management, University of the Philippines Los Baños. The objective of the training-workshop is to enhance awareness and knowledge of agri-based cooperatives on green growth practices and opportunities and to capacitate them on the strategies for effectively incorporating green practices into their enterprise’s goals, operations, and activities.
Assistant Professors of ICOPED, Karen P. Quilloy and Liezel S. Cruz presented a green growth framework for cooperatives and the different green growth practices that cooperatives can adopt, respectively. Resource persons from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) – CALABARZON and the Land Bank of the Philippines Lending Center (LANDBANK LC) – Laguna were also invited in the training to present green growth opportunities for cooperatives. Ms. Irish Joy M. Inciong, Trade and Industry Specialist from DTI-CALABARZON presented the various DTI programs and projects that support green initiatives among micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) which include cooperatives. Meanwhile, Mr. Alex Hinojosa, the Department Manager of LANDBANK LC, discussed the agricultural financing opportunities for cooperatives, particularly the Climate Resilient Agriculture Financing Program of LANDBANK.
The training-workshop was attended by 18 participants from the Green Beans Multipurpose Cooperative and the Calamba Vegetable Growers Marketing Cooperative, which were composed of members of the Board of Directors, officers, employees and non-officer members. During the workshop, the participants assessed their current level of being a “green cooperative,” formulated a green growth-inspired vision and mission for their cooperatives, and identified and prioritized green growth practices that can be adopted by the cooperatives. The participating cooperatives are expected to implement prioritized green growth practices and shall be evaluated one month after the training.
This activity is part of ICOPED’s action research project entitled “Leveraging Agricultural Cooperatives for Green Growth: A Pilot Study,” which is funded by the ASEAN-CSR Network, Ltd., Singapore. The project is being implemented by Asst. Prof. Quilloy, project leader and Asst. Prof. Cruz, project staff, who are also the lead organizers of the training workshop. JRDDomingo
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