Monday, May 31, 2010

Three women and a green store

Three women and a green store
ECHOstore fruit of 3 women’s partnership
By Aileen Garcia-Yap
Cebu Daily News
May 31, 2010



It started with the power of three: three like-minded women, three principles.

Pacita “Chit”Juan, the mother of Figaro Coffee; Jeannie Javelosa, a curator and a yoga instructor; and Regina “Reena” Francisco, who's into history, culture, and the graphic arts came together in 2008 and established a store anchored on nurturing and sustaining the self, community and environment.

Juan, the retail expert of the three, said that they named the store ECHO for Environment, Community, Hope and Organization to fit the nature of their partnership.

“More than being a business, ECHOstore is first an organization that taps communities that are producing environment-friendly products using organic and natural ingredients and then provides a space where people can see it and buy it,” said Juan.

The three women used their own funds to get their plans started.

“We had to invest, but only a little because everything brought in was consignment from people whom we already have contacts with because we are users ourselves,” Javelosa said.

The first ECHOstore was set up in Serendra, Bonifacio Global City which according to Javelosa, is an upscale area. “

We decided to open first in that area because most of our market then belong to the higher end, from the A, B and upper C,” Javelosa said

She said that back then, only that market knew what organic products were and had the choice and purchasing power to buy and live healthy.

“That's the case then and we are trying to change that now with our programs and campaigns which we tied up with organized groups.”

These programs include ECHOteach, which aims to educate their partner communities through seminars, workshops and mentoring services on entrepreneurship, product development, branding, marketing, packaging and wellness.

ECHOdesign Lab is ECHOstore’s advocacy and CSR (corporate social responsibility) which is focused on helping product design and development of community products.

The three owners and other volunteers give their time and talent to marginalized or indigenous community’s product to help refine design, product development, visual identity and packaging.

“ECHOyoga is another program on wellness towards the healthy lifestyle. ECHO here now means Empowerment, Care, Health and Oneness. Through workshops and regular classes, the ancient teachings of yoga are presented in therapeutic ways (Yoga for cancer, Yoga for scoliosis and backpains) and for specially niche markets such as the absolute beginner, heavy big people, senior citizens and those injured,” Juan shared.

From a single outlet, they found themselves busy with five outlets such as an ECHOvillage in Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Gondolas or mini ECHOstore in select outlets and offices, ECHOcafes in Le Bistro Vert Sustainable Foods in Makati City, Le Bistro Sustainable Coffees in Ninoy Aquino International Airport Arrival Areas terminals 2 and 3 and in selected Pagcor outlets.

“Our four other outlets are in the ground floor level of Ortigas Center, Shangri-la Hotel Makati’s Travel Box, Shangri-la Hotel Mactan’s Private Collection and just recently in Marriott Hotel Cebu City. We also have an ECHOyoga Community Center in Makati,” Juan said.

Juan handles marketing, Francisco acts as supervisor of retail store operations, and Javelosa acts as communications person. They have hired 10 people to help man store outlets.

“Because we also partner with like-minded companies like Shangri-la and Marriott here in Cebu, we are actually able to save on the manpower as these partners often have people already in place to man the outlets.”

Being an enterprise with a business model built on partnerships, Javelosa and Juan said that there is sustainability in what they're doing both as a business and as an advocacy.

Javelosa said that they're already partners with many non-government organizations, which often have beneficiary communities already producing eco-friendly products that they display in their store.

“We have partnership with Philippine Business for Social Progress and we also get supplies from Cebu's very own Barrio Luz community producing bags made out from tetra packs. So we're into that kind of arrangement but of course we also do quality checks and set standards before we allow them to display their products in our store and we always get the best,” Javelosa said.

Javelosa said that they plan to set up an ECHOdeli which is about helping community and regional food products.

“Siguro we will carry first 70-percent organic mix with 30-percent non-organic for a start,” she said.

Organic and eco-friendly home cleaning solution products will also soon hit the market under the ECHO brand in the third or fourth quarter of this year, said Javelosa.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

A drop of life against the drying land

A drop of life against the drying land
A PBSP exclusive
May 18, 2010


In picturesque Bohol, poverty hides behind rolling green hills and white sand beaches. In this province where livelihood is centered on rice production, PBSP helps empower the underprivileged by providing them with the tools for better productivity. One of these tools is a humble irrigation system that has also helped the farmers withstand El Niño's harsh onslaught.

The small water impounding system (SWIS) is heaven-sent for Exequil Bahalla and 13 other farmers of Barangay Katipunan, Carmen. It did not only help them send their children to school and construct better houses; it has freed them from the whims of the country's erratic seasons.

“Sa karon na naa na ning impounding system, maka-advance na mi og pananom sa among mga humay aron sa primerong semana sa Pebrero makapa-flowering na mi sa among mga tanom. Tungod ani, mas nadali ang amu-ang produksyon (With the SWIS, we can already plant rice in advance. This allows our crops to flower in the first week of February and harvest at a sooner date, allowing us to plant more crops for better productivity),” Bahalla says.

With the SWIS, rainwater is collected and stored, enough to establish a mini-dam that serves more than 10 hectares of rice farms for irrigation. This gives the farmers enough water to plant and harvest rice outside the rainy season and despite the dry spell brought on by the El Niño phenomenon.

The SWIS is one of the components of PBSP's Bohol Area Resource Management (ARM) program. PBSP also provided capability training to equip farmers with the necessary skills to form an irrigators' association and became the stewards of the SWIS.

“Ang nakanindot ani nga programa kay fitted ang project sa ilang panginabuhi ug panginahanglan. Ang Boholanan people dili sad hesitant mu-accept og mga training kung makita nila sa maka-ayo sa ilaha (It is a very good project because it meets the needs of the farmers. The Boholanon people also do not hesitate to accept any training when they know it can help them),” says Maria Buñao, then the community organizer of the Bohol ARM.

PBSP's technical assistance to the farmers already spelled success. The Carmen Multi-Purpose Cooperative, where Bahalla and his neighbors belong to, became one of the top 50 cooperatives in 2009. It is a stark contrast to the cooperative's beginnings, where they started with no offices, capital, and the technical means to organize themselves.

“Dili man gud dole out ang project. Mao nang ma-feel nilang mga farmers that they are part of the project ug sila ang direkta na maka-benepisyo sa project (This isn't simply a dole out project so the farmers felt more involved in its implementation and knew that they're the direct beneficiaries of the project),” Buñao adds.

A total of 40 units of SWIS have already been established in Bohol irrigating around 760 hectares of land and benefiting more than 800 people. Help PBSP implement SWIS in more farming communities in the country, contact pbsp@pbsp.org.ph

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Cooperative worms its way into profit

Cooperative worms its way into profit

By Tina Arceo-Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 19:51:00 05/17/2008


SAN MIGUEL, Bohol -- They’re creepy, crawly creatures, but for members of the San Miguel Multipurpose Cooperative, the African Nightcrawlers are nothing short of spectacular.

This is because the voracious earthworms are leading them slowly but surely out of poverty by turning organic waste into valuable, nutrient-rich natural fertilizer.

The African Nightcrawlers are tiny, yet they are mean, fertilizer-producing machines. Weighing just a gram each, they can eat the equivalent of their weight in organic material every day.

Such an appetite means that these hardy worms can quickly transform waste, such as chicken and cow manure, leaves, kitchen leftovers, rice straw, wood shavings, into compost, providing cooperative members with an additional source of income.

SMMPC manager Benjamin Mejorada said in an interview here that the cooperative ventured into vermicomposting -- the process of producing organic fertilizer from the waste of earthworms -- in October last year after some cooperative members learned the technology at the Center for Rural Technology Development of the Philippine Business for Social Progress in Calauan, Laguna.

Convinced of the bright prospects of vermicomposting, the cooperative invested about P50,000 in the venture, which went to the construction of a shed at the back of the training center.

The shed houses several vermicomposting beds or pits.

Each bed, measuring 1 x 5 x 0.3 meters, can contain about 1,500 kilos of “substrate,” composed of worms and organic material, 45 percent of which turn into compost.

It was estimated that each bed can produce 675 kilos of compost, which means revenue of at least P4,725 a bed for the cooperative, as the compost is sold for P7 a kilo.

The project actually cost a total of P170,000, but a grant from TeaM Energy Foundation covered the purchase of the initial 125 kilos of worms, each worth P800, and the training of cooperative members at the CRTD.

Former SMMPC chair Norberto Buñao said the cooperative started stocking its vermicomposting beds in December last year, and the first batch of organic fertilizer was sold three months later.

Buñao said neighboring farmers and the cooperative members themselves bought the organic fertilizer at P350 per 50-kilo sack to fortify their land.

More farmers are turning to organic fertilizer, he said, as chemical fertilizers have become too expensive, selling for over P1,500 a bag due mainly to the surge in the prices of crude from which chemical fertilizers are derived.

It takes about five to seven bags of chemical fertilizers to provide a hectare of riceland with the needed nitrogen and potassium.

To cut costs, an increasing number of rice farmers in the province have started mixing organic with chemical fertilizers.

“Now, we cannot keep up with the demand,” Buñao said in Filipino. “Our compost is sold even before we produce them, which is why we are thinking of expanding our vermicomposting operation.”

The cooperative, which has an asset base of P5 million, expects to recover its initial investment in less than a year as the venture is expected to gross as much as P476,500 a year. Thus it is raring to invest some more of the group’s money in the production of organic fertilizer.

The 24-year-old cooperative with some 600 members has high hopes for its vermicomposting business as the local government has declared its intention to make Bohol, the country’s 10th largest island, the center of organic agriculture in the Philippines.

Such an ambitious target will mean a surge in demand for organic fertilizer, and the SMMPC is working to be a primary source by putting more worms to work.

Aside from earning from the compost, it also plans to sell the earthworms themselves for those interested in going into vermicomposting. It helps that the African Nightcrawlers reproduce quickly.

The farmers here have no problem looking for the worms’ food as the municipality is rich in raw materials that would have otherwise been thrown away.

These include rice straw, coconut saw dust, coco coir, madre de cacao leaves and household wastes such as rotten vegetables.

“With vermicomposting, we not only earn extra income, we also contribute to the management of solid waste, protection of the environment and promotion of organic agriculture,” added Buñao.

He admits, however, that the initial cost of going into fully organic agriculture is significant as the farmer will need some 37 sacks of organic fertilizer to at least match the yield of a hectare of rice land using chemical fertilizers.

But the investment is worth it since the volume of organic fertilizer will go down by 20 percent a year until the farmer no longer needs to fertilize the land since the nutrient content has been restored.

Leo Hilado, director of operations of PBSP, said that with the province’s thrust toward organic agriculture, the private sector-led nongovernment organization is encouraging more cooperatives in the province to invest in vermicomposting.

SMMPC is one of three partner cooperatives identified for commercial production of vermicompost. The other two cooperatives are in Candelaria and Trinidad.

A combined 280 kilos of African Nightcrawlers were distributed by PBSP and TeaM Energy Foundation to these groups and six other community-based organizations to jumpstart the vermicompost industry in the province.

Hilado said that vermicomposting is now a major part of PBSP’s area resource management program for Bohol. The same goes for Samar and Cebu.

The Bohol ARM is aimed at assisting 10,283 poor households in 40 communities in eight municipalities to increase their productivity and income. It is envisioned that by the end of next year, the farmers’ groups would be able to develop and manage their own organizations and projects.

Hilado said commercial production of vermicompost was just starting in Bohol, but he expressed confidence that more groups would eventually find economic salvation in the tiny worms.

Irrigation answer to farmers' prayers

Irrigation answer to farmers' prayers

By Tina Arceo-Dumlao
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:39pm (Mla time) 05/25/2008


CARMEN, Bohol--What a difference irrigation can make in the lives of rice farmers like Exequiel Bahalla.

Bahalla of Barangay Katipunan in this town famous for its Chocolate Hills says in an interview that since a small water impounding system was put into operation in 1996 near his farm, he was able to squeeze one more crop out of his 7-hectare plot, thus doubling his income.

It costs about P150,000 and as little as six months to build a SWIS, which involves catching rainwater or the water coming from the mountains and streams in a designated area of about 2,500 square meters.

Through gravity and a series of pipes and canals, water is distributed to as much as 10 hectares of farmland.

SWIS can not be built just anywhere, however, as factors as topography, flow of water and natural rainfall pattern are taken into consideration, which explains why it takes about a year of study before the SWIS sites are identified.

Such efforts pay off handsomely in the end, however, as seen in the increased yield and incomes of the small farmers in Bohol.

What's more, farmers benefiting from the SWIS have learned to work together since they were formed into an irrigators association to maintain the impounding system and the pipe network.

Farmers pay a maintenance fee of one sack of rice a hectare of irrigated land after every harvest.

The irrigators' association then sells the produce and the money is used to keep the SWIS in good running condition.

Bahalla relates that when he solely depended on rain to water his crop, he was only able to harvest 50 to 60 cavans of palay a hectare once a year.

And since he could not predict when and how much rain would come down, his farm sometimes either had too little or too much of it. There was no way of regulating the flow.

With the SWIS, he is no longer as vulnerable and his yield has never been better.

Bahalla adds that with the water problem solved, he is now toying with the idea of embracing organic agriculture practices so he does not have to pay so much anymore for chemical fertilizers and see if his farm would produce even more rice.

Realizing the social and economic benefits of the SWIS, the Philippine Business for Social Progress has made the technology an integral part of its Area Resource Management program in Bohol.

The goal of the Bohol ARM is to help 10,283 poor households in 40 villages from eight municipalities to increase their productivity and income.

The PBSP project envisions that by the end of next year, organized farmers would be able to develop and manage their own organizations and projects to address their own issues.

There are now 56 SWIS in operation and were bankrolled by the United States Agency for International Development, A. King foundation, German Agro Action and Team Energy Foundation.

PBSP director for operations Leo Hilado hopes that more funds would be raised to put up even more SWIS in the province of Bohol, a major source of rice in the Visayas region. He said he was looking at adding another 30 within the next two years.

"The SWIS technology has actually been around for a long time, but it has never been maximized until now," Hilado said.

Hilado said PBSP would tap its corporate members to invest in the SWIS technology since it is affordable and has been proven to be effective in raising rice output. This becomes more important these days when increasing rice production has become top priority.

"Right now, we are consolidating data in the three municipalities where we have SWIS to see if we can expand the old SWIS and where we can put up new ones," Hilado said. "We are also looking at possibly putting up SWIS in the rice lands of Negros and Samar."