Farm school to teach entrepreneurship

MANILA, Philippines - A newly established farm school aims to teach its tertiary-level students not only the latest technologies but also how to make money from their farm business. Aspiring farmer-businessmen will live in the 60-hectare MFI (Meralco Foundation Institute) Farm Business Institute (MFI-FBI) in Jala-Jala, Rizal and for 24 hours a day in some weeks of the year, they will be tasked to manage their farm businesses, whether these involve livestock, poultry, aquaculture, crops or agroforestry. In the farm campus, students will dedicate 30% of their hours to classroom instruction, leaving 70% for hands-on application of agrientrepreneurship practices. "We really want our students to be immersed in the farm setting," Jose Rene C. Gayo, group head and trustee-in-charge of MFI-FBI, said in a recent interview. A first in the Philippines, the spacious MFI-FBI is situated in the town of Jala-Jala, a lakeshore town along Laguna de Bay in the province of Rizal. It will start school operations in June next year. An agribusiness graduate of Siliman University and a holder of a master’s degree in industrial economics from the University of Asia and the Pacific, Mr. Gayo hatched the farm business school concept as his dissertation for his business administration doctorate studies back in the 1990s. MFI-FBI was formed to address the need for a post-secondary family farm school program. The family farm school, on which the new institute builds, offers a high school curriculum on the basics of agriculture, adapted by the Philippines from France and Spain in 1988. "Exposing kids early on to the realities of farm business will probably make a difference," said Mr. Gayo, also the founding dean of the UA&P School of Management. However, he said, a secondary course is not enough to teach students how to make a living out of farming. "There is a real lack of training as far the entrepreneurship and management side of agriculture is concerned," Mr. Gayo said. "The students will be the ones managing the enterprises, with a supervisor who could be a faculty member," he explained. In the first three years starting June next year, only 35-40 students will be accepted by MFI-FBI, he added. MFI-FBI will offer Technical Education and Skills Development Authority-accredited program which will lead to a Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship degree under the ladderized program. It incorporates a three-year diploma course in Entrepreneurship, major in Farm Business. MFI-FBI is in talks with the University of Rizal to grant the bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship. The MFI-FBI complex will include a farm business school, an Agro-Aquatic Development Center, a Farmers Training Center, an Appropriate Agricultural Technology Center, an Agroforestry Development Center, an Urban Agriculture and Forestry Development Center and a Center for Continuing Farm Business Education. Aside from crops, livestock and poultry, aquaculture and agroforestry enterprises, students will be also oriented with processing techniques. "When farmers sell raw crops, they are subject to the dictates of the traders," Mr. Gayo said. For instance, mango produce will be processed into jams, puree and juices, he added. Cold storage facilities will be constructed for all perishable produce. Proceeds from farm sales will be divided among the school and the students. "At the end of three years, with that profit-sharing scheme, there is already some capital [for the students]," Mr. Gayo said. However, Mr. Gayo identified funding, specifically students’ tuition, and finding the right faculty members with the farming and business know-how as the challenges the institute now faces. He said companies can sponsor students, who will come from rural areas. The government can extend its help by setting up demonstration farms for crops and livestock, which the students can manage. The students will not be confined all day and night in the school, as they will have field trips to "model farms that are also family-based enterprises," Mr. Gayo said. Mr. Gayo said "the whole 60-ha. facility will be developed as an organic farm," composed of a network of small farm operations. For instance, pineapples can be grown beside banana plantations, while goats can be grown beside mango tree orchards. MFI-FBI will also engage in vermiculture, using African nightcrawler earthworms to produce organic fertilizers, as one of their income-generating mechanisms. "If we produce organic fertilizers more than we need for the farm, then we can start selling them," he said. In the long run, Mr. Gayo envisions a sustainable farm business school which can source its funds from the sales of its own farm enterprises. "If you cannot make money in those farm enterprises, how can we tell people that you go into farming?," he said. — Neil Jerome C. Morales, BusinessWorld