Bayer, IFC join hands to help 100,000 farmers

Bayer CropScience Inc. Philippines has partnered with International Finance Corp. (IFC) for a five-year project aimed at training 100,000 farmers to become “agripreneurs.”

The company said that under the agreement with IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, the target farmers would receive farming tools and technologies as well as business and financial management skills.

“Our ultimate objective is not only to support farmers to achieve higher yields but to also open to them suitable business financial tools to better manage their resources (and) have more money in their pocket at the end of each crop season,” said Hans-Joachim Wegfahrt, managing director of Bayer CropScience.

“(Filipino) farmers need to have a mindset that farming is a business for better efficiency and sustainability along the entire value chain,” Wegfahrt said in a statement.

Smallholder farmers who will participate in the project are also expected to shift from a mentality of subsistence farming to one of becoming an entrepreneur, by means of a better understanding of how to use the appropriate input and applying the good and best agronomic practices.

Asked how much funding the project entails, Bayer CropScience communications and public affairs manager Reynaldo Cutanda said in an interview that such details were still not available as the “education modules progress over five years.”

Based on similar collaborations with Bayer in other countries, the IFC is expected to help with training farmers on how to raise their income, improve post-harvest facilities, ship products and manage logistics, and develop affordable agricultural insurance products.

Also, the program is meant to ease farmers’ access to financing to enable practical applications of their new skills.

According to Bayer, the financial literacy training forms part of its Much More Rice program,  which offers farmers in the Philippines an integrated crop solution with the promise of better yield.

The company said the increased yield was anticipated through the efficient use of seeds, crop protection and latest technologies in fertilization and irrigation.