With the desire to help their farmer members earn more from their harvest, Rhencor Julian, agro-enterprise (AE) facilitator of the Lourdes Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LMPC), joined Jollibee Group Foundation’s Farmer Entrepreneurship Program (FEP) in 2017. 

With help from the mayor’s office in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, Lourdes MPC formed a site working group to mobilize and train farmers to supply white onions to Jollibee. Rhencor’s team also went to learn from the Kalasag Multi-Purpose Cooperative in Nueva Ecija which also supplies onions to Jollibee under FEP. 

Rhencor encouraged farmers to approach this partnership as if they were agri-entrepreneurs. Instead of producing just enough to make ends meet, farmers were challenged to deliver 150-210 tons of white onions to Jollibee. 

The farmers rose to the challenge and even secured a Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) certification from the Department of Agriculture to ensure the high quality of their products.  

“Sinabi ng mga farmers na nakatanim pa lang ang sibuyas, may presyo na agad. Sabi pa ng farmers, eto pala ang ibig sabihin ng farming as business. Nag-compute na kami bago pa lang kami magtanim (The farmers said that even while onions are being planted, there’s already a price for the produce. They also realized this is what farming as business means. They already compute before they plant), Rhencor said.”

In the four years since they joined the program, the cooperative has successfully supplied over 500 tons of white onions to Jollibee and other clients like the Department of Agriculture’s Kadiwa. In the coming months, they will also supply their produce to a supermarket consolidator.

“Proud kami dahil ang unang perception sa amin ng aming community ay hindi naming kayang magdeliver ng produkto sa isang market tulad ng Jollibee. Unti-unti itong nabago at marami na ang gustong sumali sa aming coop (We are proud of our journey. Our community used to think that we couldn’t deliver to a market like Jollibee. This perception gradually changed and many people now want to join our coop,),” he concluded.