Philippines Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture

PPSA is a multistakeholder and inclusive partnership platform that aims to engage smallholder farmers and bring together different sectors and market players to co-develop, facilitate, and scale action-focused initiatives to address key issues in agriculture towards socio-economic growth and competitive advantage.

PPSA works as an in-country coordinating body that provides on the-ground support to Working Groups in areas of performance measurement, resource mobilization, research and technical assistance, convening and facilitation, knowledge management as well as communications. To date, it has established five commodity Working Groups on Coconut, Coffee, Corn, Fisheries, and Vegetables that are developing ways to transform their sectors through the implementation of inclusive value chain projects.

• Coconut Working Group, led by Unilever Philippines, is focusing on coconut sugar for export;
• Coffee Working Group, led by Nestlé Philippines, is focusing on the implementation of the Philippine Coffee Industry Roadmap 2017–2022;
• Corn Working Group, led by Pioneer DuPont, is addressing issues such as access to farm credit, production technologies, modern post-harvest facilities and processing plants, and high transportation costs;
• Vegetable Working Group, led by East West Seed, is working on increasing the per capita consumption of vegetables through information and education campaigns, and developing efficient distribution channels;
• Fisheries Working Group is exploring aquaculture projects with smallholder through outgrower arrangements, and organizing the value chain to include aggregators, processors, and exporters.

Cross-cutting thematic working groups on agricultural financing, and the Learning Alliance comprising of academic institutions and think tanks to promote market driven and action-oriented agriculture development research are also in place.

On its 2nd year as the PPSA Secretariat, PBSP has brought together over 70 organizations that were able to develop and implement seven inclusive commodity value chains, that reached over 7,500 smallholder farmers in the country.

Inclusive growth occurs in a society where every segment is allowed to participate in and contribute equally to the growth process, regardless of circumstances. This means that for inclusive growth to happen, both men and women should have equal access to economic opportunities.

However, in some areas in the Philippines, especially in the regions badly hit by disasters, women are not provided with the same access to economic opportunities as men. These communities, mostly fishing communities, are reported to overly depend on a single source of livelihood and thus, are more vulnerable when disasters strike.