CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA) -- The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) expands its implementation of the Enhanced Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty (EPAHP) program as it partners with different farmer cooperatives in the country.

“One of the main programs of the EPAHP program is to increase the agricultural production of our farmers, and at the same time, we want to increase the income of our local farmers by linking them to institutional markets such as government feeding programs, specifically for DSWD, the supplementary feeding program, the bangon program, and for the DepEd (Department of Education), the school-based feeding program, among other things,” DSWD Assistant Secretary for Innovation Baldr Bringas said.

EPAHP is a government program that aims to address the critical concerns of hunger mitigation, food and nutrition insecurity, and poverty reduction. Previously known as Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty (PAHP), it was enhanced in 2019 to add, additional partners, roles, and responsibilities in the program.

From the previous government agencies DSWD, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), and Department of Agriculture (DA), the program added representatives from the Office of the President-Office of the Cabinet Secretariat (OP-OCS), the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), DepEd, Department of Health (DOH), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), National Irrigation Administration (NIA), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM), Land Bank of the Philippines (Land Bank), Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), and Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

Bringas claimed that through the program, DSWD was able to secure contracts worth roughly P400 million from a number of farmer cooperatives acting as suppliers for the various government programs planned in EPAHP.

With the rigid requirements needed as to the procurement process in the government, which farmer cooperatives have difficulties complying with, Bringas said the DSWD is now pushing for the adoption of negotiated procurement under community participation that will simplify and streamline the procurement process and help the farmers comply with the minimum requirements of the law, making them suppliers for government projects.

As the agency faced another challenge in locating various CBOs and farmer cooperatives, the DSWD partnered with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO) to devise strategies to better locate all the community-based organizations and farmer cooperatives through digital mapping.

“Through the digital mapping system, we were able to efficiently link our farmers [to the market] with what our farmers can offer or services they offer, and the goods that they sell, we can directly link them to institutional markets such as government projects like the supplementary program and all of the feeding programs of the government,” he mentioned.

Enhancing cooperative participation

As the EPAHP program is being implemented, the Collectif Strategies Alimentaries (CSA), a non-government organization, together with AgriCOOPh, implemented a seminar-workshop dubbed “Enhancing the Cooperative’s Knowledge and Skills on Public Food Procurement" on February 6–8.

“The workshop builds on our ongoing efforts since 2016 in collaboration with PAKISAMA, AFA, and AgriCOOPh to engage farmer cooperatives more deeply in government food procurement programs in the Philippines. This is also a direct continuation of the dialogue that we had at the National Public Food Procurement Forum in Cebu. We are here to explore how public food procurement can serve and be used as a tool for social and economic development, improving the condition of farming farmers, and as a stepping stone towards a sustainable food system,” CSA Director Marek Poznanski said.

With the EPAHP reaching out to cooperatives, the seminar-workshop aimed to build and strengthen the capabilities of the cooperative and its federation in Mindanao as they engage with the procurement process.

With participants coming from the different regions of Mindanao, they gained learning experience on identifying various food procurement programs in the government where they may be able to engage, learning from the practical experiences, challenges, and best practices of other cooperatives in terms of the public food procurement programs, acquiring knowledge and skills as to the steps of the public food procurement programs, and developing action plans for the coop’s engagement with the public food procurement program.

"Through the EPHAP program and other programs implemented by the national government, I hope that we will be able to improve the lives of our partners in nation-building, which are the farmers, fisherfolk, and all the community-based organizations nationwide,” Bringas said.

With the success of the seminar-workshop organizers, including DSWD, it is hoped that more farmer cooperatives will partake in the conduct of public food procurement by the EPAHP member agencies. (JAKA/PIA-10)