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our journey / press

our journey

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It all began with a boredom, frustration, an answer to a crossroad in the founder's personal journey.  An inspiration, encouragement and support from a patriotic friend. Relentless prodding of a mayor, curiosity, passion for the poor, compassion, an understanding family and the ultimate action.

Benjie Picardo, a serial entrepreneur and a wannabe social engineer e
njoying semi-retirement but unhappy with his golf game, uprooted himself from San Francisco to get muddy with the farmers in Iraya.

Jicontol Valley in Dolores, is a vast, fertile, fully irrigated but underutilized rice farmland. 
Due to their challenges, the farmers yield a dismal average of 35 sacks per hectare.  We launched our pilot in Eastern Samar because it is one of the most economically depressed province in the country. "Nation-building must start at ground zero and build from ground up. Over half of informal settlers in Metro Manila are from this region", says GK Founder Tony Meloto.

Starting with a demo farm of 13.5 hectares in May 2010, the proof of concept was successfully implemented in Jicontol Valley now harvesting an average of 232 sacks per hectare. Using the SL-12H “miracle rice”, responsible input /pest management and corporate efficiencies, the farmers have netted an average of P48,000.00 per hectare per harvest from both their harvest share and labor wages. Up from P3,000.00 (US$70.00) a year. Iraya Farms nets about the same as the partner farmers to bankroll succeeding croppings and expansion.

Iraya Farms has since acquired production equipment, post harvest facilities, transport, service vehicles, boats and built warehouses. We continue to build capacity as we increase hectarage. Gawad Kalinga continues with its values formation programs. Iraya Farms partnered with the local government unit in finishing the farm to market road abandoned by contractors due to fund shortage, birthed by unabated corruption.


Today, DSWD has collaborated with us in implementing their Cash for Work/Training program. The Philippine Coconut Authority has enjoined IF to add value to coco farmers. IF will shift the farmers from the cartel-controlled copra to the finished products coco sugar and premium lambanog. IF has created market linkages where the farmers make 10 times more than copra. 


expansion

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In 2011, we scaled up to 100 hectares in Dolores, Eastern Samar. Unfortunately, mother nature intervened with two flooding episodes resulting in dismal harvest. Encouraged by the faster social maturity and tenacity of our partner farmers, we persited in hopes of replicating our successful 1st cropping. As the area's infrastructure capacity grows, we will continue  to expand.

Using the same template, we planted 31 hectares in Rizal in Palawan. As expected the harvest quadrupled the usual production in the area. This next cropping, we roll out to Nara, Palawan, Nueva Ecija and Negros Oriental. These 100 hectare compact farms are showcases to other farmers  in the immediate areas and beyond as we sow hybrid seeds throughout the country’s fully irrigated areas. In the aforementioned areas, we are enjoying the overwhelming support  of  both national and local government leaders and strategic private partners. The Department of Agriculture has given us mechanical driers and a multi-pass rice mill in Dolores, Eastern Samar. Socially-responsible restaurant chains the likes of the Pancake House group are committed to buy our rice.




verticals

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Leveraging the success of the Big-Middle-Little Brother social enterprise template, other scalable and replicable enterprises are being implemented to provide employment and opportunities. GK trained beneficiaries could be the most desirable partner workers any enterprise is privileged to have. These little brothers, hustlers for survival all their lives are the best sales people.

In Tacloban City, Iraya Water (www.irayawater.com) started mid March 2011 delivering 5 gallon jugs of purified water to residential and commercial customers providing employment to the beneficiaries of the newly-established GK community in barangay Palanog. Iraya Water has been the success template in social enterprise. The Little Brother has now ascended to the Middle Brother position. Through hands on training by the start up Middle Brother, the Little Brother has now been installed to run the enterprise employing 3 Little Brothers and 1 Sister. The Middle Brother has moved on to establish another Iraya Water branch.

Iraya Bread, started baking in Jicontol Valley November 2010. Due to various factors, we had to unwind the project. We are smart enough cut our losses and move on.


In its pilot stage is Iraya Pork. Iraya Pork is not only a poverty reduction initiative, it is also a carbon capture revenue stream. Working with Food From Thin Air(www.ffta.com), Iraya Pork will an implementing partner of FFTA.

Not surprising, other socially-responsible parties have taken the cudgels of partnering with us in eradicating poverty. We will soon be busy encouraging other farmers throughout the Eastern Visayas region to plant sweet potato and cassava. The JCA Foundation (Jose Ch. Alvarez Foundation) has set up an ethanol plant in Isabel, Leyte where we are producing 1,000 liters of hydros ethanol for fuel motorcycles and tricycles.


In partnership with the Philippine Coconut Authority and the Balik Probinsya Foundation, we will be producing coco sugar and premium lambanog starting June 2012.

Whew....a lot of work. 

Press:

DSWD Signs MOU with Farmers’ CooperativeFriday, 30 March 2012 14:24

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Iraya Farms Farmers’ Cooperative (Iraya Farms) signed an agreement that will help Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries engaged in agriculture by implementing appropriate community farming systems and designs, providing training, and upgrading their farming techniques, among others.

Initially, the project will be implemented in Jicontol Valley, Dolores, Eastern Samar.  It will benefit some 600 farmer-beneficiaries from barangays Buenavista, Osmeña, Hinalaso, Jicontol, Gap-an, Cabago-an and Mayombong.

Secretary Soliman said that the partnership is meant to maximize efforts to capacitate and empower the beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilya to establish and manage their own businesses in the agriculture sector.  Likewise, the project aims to contribute to the government’s efforts to attain rice sufficiency in the country.

Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman and Mr. Ruben Diego Q. Picardo, president and chief operating officer of Iraya Farms (2nd from right) inked the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) held at the DSWD-Central Office in Batasan, Quezon City.

Also present during the signing were (from left) DSWD Undersecretary Parisya H. Taradji and Mr. Henry Lim, chairman and chief operating officer of SL Agritech Corporation. ### 30 March 2012 (DSWD-Social Marketing Service)

DSWD-Iraya Farm Program launched
By Alicia F. Nicart

Thursday 26th of April 2012
BORONGAN CITY, Eastern Samar, April 26 (PIA) -- Not only do beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) get
financial funding from government, and they also educational and medical assistance. Now the 4Ps beneficiaries from Dolores town, here will be taught upgraded farming technology. 

Dubbed as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) – Iraya Farms Partnership Project, it was launched at the Jicontol Valley, which covers several hectares of irrigated farmlands. 

The area, which supplies a great percentage of the palay requirement of the province, is reachable by about two hours of motorboat ride from the wharf of the town. 

During the launching, Project Development Officer III of DSWD Central Office Evangeline O. Inego shared the project’s ultimate goals: food security, economic stability, and environmental sustainability. 

According to her, DSWD resources are not enough considering the magnitude of financially hard-up families, that is why, government partners with private and non-government sectors whose support and sympathy are sought to achieve the goals of the department’s protection and poverty reduction initiatives. 

Iraya Farms Inc. offered to transform the already developed but underutilized agricultural lands to high yielding farms that would sustain food-for the table and income from the production surplus of 4Ps beneficiaries located in areas like the above-mentioned. 

The report said that through the cash-for-training, which funds would be shared 50-50 by DSWD and Iraya Farms, it is expected that the beneficiaries would be fully capacitated in farming the Jicontol valley with rice. Likewise, it is expected that the farmer-beneficiaries, given the technology by DSWD in 12 months, could eventually establish and manage their own business in agriculture. The report added that, after this duration, Iraya Farms will fully take-over the management and guidance of the organized beneficiaries until they attain business maturity or economic empowerment. 

These farmer-beneficiaries of Jicontol valley are found in the barangays around it: Buenavista, Osmena, Hinolaso, Jicontol, Gap-ang, and Mayombong.

DSWD-Iraya Farms, Inc., partnership pilot project launched

Dolores Mayor Emiliana Villacarillo delivers her speech during the DSWD-Iraya Farms, Inc., partnership pilot project launching in barangay Gap-ang, Dolores, Eastern Samar , yesterday. The joint venture with 556 beneficiaries in seven barangays of Dolores is the first and pilot private-public partnership project on poverty alleviation in the country on agricultural farming systems technology for Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries. (Restituto A. Cayubit)


DOLORES,Eastern Samar - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Iraya Farms, Incorporated(IFI) partnership pilot project on poverty alleviation was launched here yesterday.
 
Director Letecia Diokno, DSWD regional office 8 director said in an interview that this is the first and pilot project on private-public partnership in terms of sustainable livelihood on agricultural farming systems technology for Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries.   She added that this project is also assisted by the Department of Agriculture. T
his DSWD-IFI, cooperation project has 556 beneficiaries mostly farmers from the barangays of Buenavista, Osmeña, Hinolaso, Jicontol, Gap-ang, Cabago-an and Mayombong, comprising the Jicontol Valley , this town.   She added that the same beneficiaries are also the beneficiaries of the Panatawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) otherwise known as the conditional cash transfer program, implemented in this town,  and  at the same time who are prioritized for Self Employemnt Assistance Kaunlaran (SEA-K) livelihood projects.

She also disclosed that this new partnership opened a new avenue for the DSWD to achieve economies of scale in terms of beneficiaries reached, because Iraya, Farms, Inc., is willing to proceed with the project at a faster pace by saturating Pantawid beneficiaries in each identified project sites to be covered by the project. 
IFI is one of those that signified to cooperate with the DSWD in this endeavor and commit itself to transform the developed and irrigated but under-utilized rice lands in Jicontol Valley to high yielding farms.   

DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman expressed optimism on the success of the project noting that the proven IFI  system in the application of the modern and mechanized rice farming technology will showcase what the collaboration of government and the socially responsible private sector can do to alter the landscape in impoverished areas.  She added that project implementation is expected to be replicated in other areas  three months after take-off in Jicontol Valley .

 Diokno said that IFI also commits to design project models that would cover  4Ps beneficiaries in the remaining barangays of Dolores. (Restituto A. Cayubit)


 

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