My mistake, Cynthia Villar’s mistake? The Inclusive Lesson from ICRISAT

MANILA: Inclusive is the single word I'll use to describe what we have in mind about what to do with all those billions of pesos of the coco levy funds. Not the inclusive of NEDA in the Philippines but the inclusive of ICRISAT & Partners in India.

My story today is inclusive of my own mistake. Yesterday, at exactly 0815 hours 30 October 2013, I was at the Senate building near Manila Bay off Roxas Blvd behind the GSIS HQ thinking all the while that at 0900 hours would be the public hearing at the Senate presided over by Senator Cynthia Villar as Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food. I quickly learned from the guard at the entrance, who went on his way to bring me a printed page announcing activities at the Senate, that there was a public hearing scheduled at 1000 hours on Finance but not on Agriculture & Food. I went up to Rm 503 anyway, and Sinta, the front girl at Senator Cynthia's office, told me that instead, Senator Cynthia was in Ilocos Norte, at the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU), where the public hearing was to be held. There was going to be no other public hearing except this one. My mistake; I didn't check. And MMSU was 500 km away! The public hearing was scheduled at 0100 hours, and I could fly - except that I would not.

Senator Cynthia's mistake? Even if you gave me the plane ticket, I wouldn't fly because I didn't think that Ilocos Norte was the best place for a one-and-only public hearing on what to do with the coconut levy funds. Certainly, MMSU is a good University, but UP Los Baños in Laguna as the premiere State University in Agriculture was still the best and most accessible to most anyone interested in taking part of the public discussions on the coco funds. So, why not UPLB?

And then again, I thought about how UP Los Baños had been always excellent but always academic! UPLB had never been at the forefront of issues of national interest, and things wouldn't change now, given all those UPLB Chancellors, except at the time of Emil Q Javier. If you need proof, let me tell you that I was an ever-present member of the Steering Committee that met many times (monthly) to prepare for the celebration of the 95th Alumni Homecoming & Loyalty Day on the 2nd week of this month, and there was hardly any mention of agriculture as a subject of national importance. Excellent, not relevant.

I had been preparing for days to present the Nagkaisa proposal we call The Super Coops of 2014. As the spokesman, I even prepared a very brief PowerPoint presentation, and I brought my laptop and was ready to present my 7 slides (the image you see here was Slide #2):

Slide #1 says: (Inclusive)
Slide #2 says: Inclusive of 1,000,000 families rising from poverty
Slide #3 says: Inclusive of: 100,000,000,000 pesos; 1,000,000 families; 1,000,000 pesos/project; 100,000 projects; 1,000 towns
Slide #4 says: Inclusive of: 10 years; 10 billion pesos a year; 10 thousand Super Coops; 10 Super Coops/town; 10 projects/Super Coop; 10 families/project.
Slide #5 says: Inclusive Super Coops: Inclusive of family, inclusive of the poor, inclusive BOD, inclusive credit, inclusive marketing.
Slide #6 says: Inclusive exclusives: inclusive of max income, inclusive of steady income.
Slide #7 says: Dios ti agngina! (inclusive)
("Dios ti agngina" is the unique Ilocano way of saying "Thanks," the words meaning "God will repay you dearly.")

Inclusive, inclusive, inclusive. I was going to tell my listeners at the public hearing that the "inclusive growth" of the National Economic & Development Authority (NEDA) for the Philippines is exclusive of the producers enjoying the fruits of marketing their produce themselves through their cooperatives. NEDA's inclusive excludes. With increased income for farmers but with marketing exclusively at the hands of the merchants, the traders will continue to become richer and the poor farmers will continue to become poorer.

I was going to tell those at the public hearing that in contrast, the inclusive market-oriented development approach of ICRISAT & Partners was going to insure that the poor farmers will rise from poverty. I was going to tell them that if the farmers' Super Coop will provide them credit for inputs at low interest rates, will grant them inventory credit in times of want, will do the marketing for them, the farmers will indeed maximize their incomes and sustain such incomes, which follows that they will rise from poverty.

Actually, I brought more than just 7 slides. I brought a 2-page write up on our proposal that you can read below. You will note that we summarize the whole idea into a concept we call Inclusive Management.

(For the original posts, click here: "The Super Coops of 2014," Nagkaisa, blogspot.com.)

Front Page
THE SUPER COOPS OF 2014
For Senator Cynthia Villar: To reach 10,000 coops and 1M farm families, to teach how to fish - and how to sell fish

For the good of millions, the Coco Billions call for a Coop Revolution. So, the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Asingan, Pangasinan now urges Lady Senator Cynthia Villar, Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture & Food, to initiate by law Super Coops, via "The Village Cooperatives Act of 2014," to amend RA 9520 & create a new Cooperatives Management Authority. For inclusive growth.

Super Coops are where the coco levy funds should go to. Not to a super body, not to government, but to the people. Empower more the many, less the few.

With 10 Super Coops in each of 1,000 towns & cities in the country, 10,000 coops funded PhP 10 M each for 10 livelihood projects with 100 families, or 1,000 families in a town, that's 1 million families in motion & in heaven. The results will be immediate, national, and palpable. The effect will be electric!

The Super Coops were born out of these ideas:

Vision: Villages rising from poverty
We want to know where we want to go (Vision) so that we can figure out how to get there (Mission).
Super Coops target entire villages - it takes a village to change a village. If farmers are enriched, families grow. So grow the villages, so grows the country.

Mission: Creating inclusive cooperatives.
Rise from poverty: Mission fulfils Vision. Raising from poverty is not raising income only; it is optimizing & sustaining income for each producer. Thus, Super Coops will help members celebrate their lives (image).

Inclusive services: From input to output, these services are: training & mentoring, credit, production, crop insurance, harvesting & post-harvest handling, processing, warrantage, and marketing - up to exports. The farmers need all the help they can get!

Empowerment: This lies in making decisions with partners. The Board of Directors is a partnership of 9 Ps: public (policy), private (business), philanthropist (donor), people (NGO or PO), preacher (morals), professor (science), professional (experience), popularizer (media), and peasants (5). Note number of BOD farmers and an overseer of morals included.

Livelihood projects: With lower production costs, members are encouraged to go after projects such as coco water, sorgo sugar, brown rice, baby corn, or a pinakbet package. Teach Senior Citizens creativity with the PC. Control coconut scale insects. Or grow roses.

Inclusive of family. Each project is a family affair; everyone learns to be responsible for something.
Goodbye usury, hello good prices! With cheaper credit accessible, loans in times of want (the Ilocano gawat), poor farmers don't run to usurers. With the coop as middleman, abusive traders cannot dictate prices, as the coop can wait for better prices for the produce in its warehouse. The coop is the trader & exporter itself; this is inclusive marketing. We teach farmers not only how to fish, but also how to sell fish.

Reengineering: Government will initially allocate PhP 1M to each coop to reorganize. Plus PhP 5M to a third party to package Inclusive Management into (a) a Management Bible and (b) training modules, since it's a new concept. Coops must learn & teach the new.

Having funding, with faithful and honest leaders down and up, with Inclusive Management, the Super Coops will help 1M farm families in the country rise from poverty soon - and stay UP.
What about watchdogs? Think of 1,000 families in 1 town, everyone is watching. Think of 1M farmers initially. Think of the multiplier effect!

Proponents: ROGER DARANCIANG (Chair, Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative of Asingan, Pangasinan) and LITO SALES (Vice Chair).
Spokesman: FRANK HILARIO (Member). Websites: Nagkaisa (blogspot.com) & iCRiSAT Watch (blogspot.com). Email: frankahilario@gmail.com

Back Page
Q&A ON PROPOSED SUPER COOPS OF 2014

The most compelling reason for Super Coops? You spread happiness far & wide - and quickly! Every year for 10 years.

Where are you coming from? Those PhP 100 billion of the coco levy funds belong to the people, so give it to them. With 100 projects funded PhP 100M total, 10 Super Coops in each town will enjoy economies of scale working with 1,000 families.

What do you want? We want to set up Super Coops all over the Philippines. At least 10,000 of them from Aparri to Zamboanga. Target 1M farm families engaged in projects funded with those coco billions supervised by those coops.

What is a Super Coop? A cooperative that offers inclusive and affordable services to its members, for them to optimize and sustain their incomes, so the poor can rise from poverty. (A great idea to celebrate October as Cooperative Month!)

What do you mean affordable? Coops can offer low-interest loans because they are VAT-free and income tax-free.

Optimize & sustain income? For producers like farmers to raise income, 2 things are necessary: (1) They must reduce costs of production. (2) They must obtain good prices for their produce. To keep getting good income, farmers must be able to continue doing (1) and (2). That is where the Super Coops come in, providing affordable credit as called for and marketing services as long and as much as needed, and continually distributing the returns.

How inclusive are Super Coops? Inclusive of family, every member learning responsibility for something. Inclusive services (9), inclusive marketing, inclusive management. Inclusive growth, inclusive of village, inclusive of the poor.

Marketing, why don't you just talk to a trader or exporter? The coop earns for members. Inclusive marketing is the key; merchants get richer all the time, so why not the people as traders & exporters via Super Coops?

Why revise the CDA law? RA 9520 is good, but inadequate. Like, it calls for "economic enterprises" but not inclusive growth. Like, it doesn't mandate loans to poor members between harvests, when most needed. CDA needs improvement, big. Like, cda.gov.ph displays its own RA 9520 with 4 big typo errors. (A poor idea to celebrate October as Cooperative Month!)

Is this an original idea? Combined as Super Coops, yes. Actually, we combined 3 original ideas here:

(1) Inclusive marketing comes from the original idea of inclusive market-oriented development (IMOD) from the International Crops Research for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), based in India, headed by Director General William Dar, a Filipino and an original thinker. IMOD includes the poor in the whole value chain. In the Super Coops proposal, the coop is the body to implement inclusive marketing. (For more details on IMOD, visit icrisat.org.)

(2) Inclusive credit (warrantage, or inventory credit), comes from the FAO in their work in Africa. It works like this: A farmer deposits, say 50% of his produce with the coop, from which he can draw cash anytime. The produce stays in the warehouse until a good price comes; when that part of his produce is finally sold, he gets what he deserves. Since he is a member of the coop, he gets double benefit: his cash at the instance of sale and his dividend at the end of the year.

(3) Inclusive partnership (9 Ps) is expressed in the composition of the Board of Dir
ectors in a Super Coop is inspired by the partnership of public and private interests originated by ICRISAT & Partners. So, among other BOD members, we have a preacher (watch your morals) and many farmers (watch for your friends and families, people).

Why not give the coco funds to a private super body? There is the extreme danger of vested interests poisoning the air.

Why not a public super body, an interagency group of government offices? Bureaucracy breeds corruption. Consider the mountain of money. Also, bureaucracy is anti-innovation. Instead, let's encourage countrywide creativity with coops!

Why put your trust in cooperatives? Why not? The members of a coop as one, as the General Assembly, exercises inclusive power over the entire coop. With Super Coops, farmer members from 10,000 towns also will be watching!

Can old coops become Super Coops? Yes, with reengineering and training in Inclusive Management.
How will Super Coops start? With initial infusions of (1) PhP 5M to a third party, for packaging Inclusive Management into a Management Bible as well as into how-to training modules, since it's a new idea. (2) PhP 1M to each coop, for reengineering and training in Inclusive Management, since it has to be internalized to the bones.

What's the most crucial part of Super Coops? Inclusive Management. In terms of parts, 3 are crucial, nay necessary: (1) To cut costs, the coop supplies farmers inputs at affordable costs and on credit. (2) To defeat usury, in lean times the coop lends to farmers. (3) To defeat poverty, the coop seeks to maximize marketing income, for the members.

Why Cynthia Villar? We believe we need a new law for the poor farmers, and she is the Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture & Food - and we know she's one smart lady!