𝗔𝗸𝗹𝗮𝗻-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗼𝗽 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗖𝗦𝗢 𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁

The Integrated Barangays of Numancia Multi-Purpose Cooperative (IBON-MPC) in Aklan is one of the six Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) nationwide recognized in the recent CSO Partnership Summit held in Cavite.

As the lead CSO accrediting office of the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries (PCAF) organized the summit, acknowledging the efforts and contributions of cooperatives in co-implementing projects and services to spur growth in the rural farming communities.

IBON-MPC had 23 original members and P4,800.00 working capital when it registered with the Cooperative Development Authority as a barangay-based coop in March 2003. Formerly called Pusiw MPC, the cooperative catered to the financial needs of the minimum wage-earning residents, primarily farmers and farm workers, through its easy-access loaning program.

From the P1 million initial revolving loan they availed from the Land Bank of the Philippines in 2006, IBON-MPC presently has a P60-million credit line. It also became a trusted lending conduit of several government financing institutions, including DA’s Agricultural Credit Polity Council (ACPC) and the Provincial Government of Aklan.

IBON-MPC served as the ACPC’s lending conduit for the P12.4-million Survival and Recovery (SURE) – COVID 19 loan program that benefited 496 fisherfolk from Altavas, Batan, and New Washington in 2020. In the same year, they also accessed P10-million zero-interest loan from ACPC through the provincial government that financed their trading of milled rice, fresh palay, certified rice seeds, fertilizer, chemical inputs, and fattened swine.

The coop is also a recipient of the P12.5-million Rice Processing Center II from the DA’s Rice Program and Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division in 2017 targeted to serve over 100 hectares of rice lands in Numancia.

According to IBON-MPC General Manager Arnulfo Magcope, the facility enabled the rice growers and the micro, small, and medium enterprise owners involved in the palay business to lessen the volatility of palay prices in the market, especially during the peak of the harvest season. Aside from that, they also received a flatbed dryer and other rice farming machinery and tractors.

“We treated rice farming as a social enterprise. We looked into ways to assist rice growers in many areas, including financing for their inputs, machinery for land preparation, crop establishment, transplanting up to harvesting, and rice milling,” he said.

DA ramped up the technology transfer and interventions to Numancia rice farmers through IBON-MPC. The cooperative became a partner in implementing the agency’s Community Hybrid Rice Model Farm Project in 2021, demonstrating the advantages of cultivating hybrid seeds to boost farmers’ yield.

With the laudable performance of IBON-MPC in sustaining the agri-fishery projects, they also became a recipient of the DA’s Enhanced Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita Financial Grant, Baboyang Walang Amoy, broiler egg production, native chicken, and goat livelihood projects. Acting as the Big Brother in the pilot implementation of DA’s Farm and Fisheries Clustering and Consolidation (F2C2) Program, the cooperative streamlines the opportunities from DA to smaller farming and fishery organizations in Aklan toward a sustainable agricultural value chain.

IBON-MPC has been among the 417 CSOs accredited by PCAF since the promulgation of the DA Administrative Order No 13 in 2020. Aside from IBON-MPC, the Kooperatiba Naton MPC of Tigbauan, Iloilo, which is also a co-implementing CSO, shared their best practices in the summit.

The CSO Partnership Summit conducted on June 21 also seeks to explain the revised guidelines in accrediting CSOs as DA’s partners in the project implementation. ### (Text by Sheila Mae H. Toreno/DA-RAFIS 6)