News

VSU supports CPAR intensification drive
by Marlowe U. Aquino, PhD

Photos courtesy of the Visayas State University (VSU)

Farmer consultation-briefings with VSU staff members prior to CPAR project implementation.

Our motivation to utilize the Community-based Participatory Action Research (CPAR) is to have greater participation, enhance people's empowerment, and maintain sustainability in the different programs of the university,” said Dr. Julieta Roa, director of the Philippine Rootcrops Research and Training Center (PRCRTC) of the Visayas State University (VSU) in Baybay, Leyte.

Through the university-led CPAR project on Gabi Chips Processing in Liloan, Southern Leyte, several local, regional, and national government organizations and non-government organizations helped in its successful implementation through interactive, dynamic, and strong partnership of the stakeholders.

Farmers of Barangay Liloan have been producing quality and sustainable gabi chips because of the processing technology of PRCRTC, not to mention the continuous production of raw materials by the farmers.

The project is jointly implemented by BAR through the DA-Regional Field Unit VIII – Eastern Visayas Integrated Agricultural Research Center, Techno-Gabay of the Visayas Consortium for Agricultural Research Program, Department of Trade and Industry and Department of Science and Technology of Southern Leyte, and the local government of Liloan, farmers' groups of Liloan.

All involved actors provide technical, financial, and political leadership to the overall success of the project. This could be attributed to the added innovative process in the holistic developmental modality of CPAR.

Locally packaged gabi chips.

Accordingly, VSU-PRCRTC introduced the continuing improvement and innovation process (CIIP) in the CPAR methodology as they encouraged community participation in the different activities.

The CIIP focused on six important strategies, namely: community analysis, understanding desired impacts and outcomes, systematic action designing, participatory implementation, community performance assessment including technology utilization and application, and creation of innovative enterprises and synthesis of relevant information. These strategies contributed in the attainment of the project's objectives on community's capacity, improved profitability through improved product quality, presentation and establishment of a facility for skills development, and improved the enterprise monitoring using participatory approaches.

The CPAR project was directed on a vision of productive and sustainable enterprise development because of the strict adherence to the concept of CPAR and CIIP, utilization of the introduced technology for development, partnerships of different key actors and stakeholders and requirements of the different markets using standard protocol of processing and manufacturing procedures. Incidentally, the project standardized processing procedures and established the Community's Good Manufacturing Practice Facility which will house the training center and processing activities of the community.

With the end view of utilizing the CPAR modality and innovative process approach, the efforts of BAR and its partners will not only be in paper but also in action as reality unfolds in making agriculture business one step at a time towards enterprise development.