Department of Agriculture Cordillera (DA-CAR) Regional Executive Director Atty. Jennilyn Dawayan has urged local government units (LGUs) in the region to strengthen to partnership or cooperation with the private sector under a Public-Private Partnership or PPP.
In the Benguet Provincial Coordination Meeting held at the Sangguniang Panlalawigan on June 19, 2024, Director Dawayan explained the advantages of establishing a PPP by LGUs, farmers cooperatives and associations, and private sectors that would be beneficial to all sectors.
“One of the areas that we are looking for a strong collaboration with the private sector and not only with the farmers organizations and the government. Resources of government will be channeled which is why we need to have strong organizations as partners to manage projects, these are the partners that we want to support in terms of collaborative projects,” Dawayan said.
Public-private partnerships in agriculture are collaborative mechanisms in which actors in research fields and the private sector share resources, risks and generate innovations for the development of the agricultural sector, including the livestock, forestry, and fishery sectors.
Interactions between publicly-funded institutions and private sector entities occur in several areas such as seed production, farm implements and machinery production, disease diagnostics and vaccines manufacture, value-addition, and post-harvest agricultural processing and product quality testing and evaluation.
Collaborative partnerships can also effectively bridge the gap between the distinctive competencies of the public and private sector, respectively, to better meet the needs of farmers.
“There should be a strong partnership with the farmers organization so that it would be the organization that would operate a project, the presence of a partner should always be present.
Government resources are also limited which is why partnership is very important. We can only do so when there are strong accredited civil society organizations having strong support of the local government units,” Dawayan added. By JTLlanes