Inside a Two-Day Regenerative Agriculture Training for 80 Farmers in Del Carmen, Siargao

Eighty farmers in Del Carmen, Siargao trained in regenerative agriculture and organizational development under the EU-PH Green Economy Partnership.

The Women’s Center, filled

The Del Carmen Women’s Center was built to hold trainings like this one. Rebuilt after Super Typhoon Odette tore through Siargao in 2021, the facility now hosts women-led agriculture and livelihood sessions, stores produce in a cold room, and doubles as a disaster response hub. On the first morning of the training, roughly 80 farmers from across the municipality filled it.

The activity was titled Para sa Isla: Capacity Building on Regenerative Agriculture and Organizational Development, a two-day training delivered by the Visayas State University (VSU) Extension Office through the first leg of its iCARE Philippines initiative. It was convened in partnership with iLAJA Siargao, AGREA-Siargao, and the Municipality of Del Carmen.

The training was not a single lecture repeated to a passive audience. It combined technical instruction on soil, water, and trees with a working session on how farmers organize themselves, and it placed both inside a municipality that has already committed to a circular economy transition.

What the two days actually covered

The technical content was specific, and it was taught by specialists from VSU.

On Day 1, Dr. Mark Anthony M. Barbadillo of the VSU Department of Soil Science led a session on Soil and Water Conservation and Integrated Nutrient Management. Ms. Serica Joy C. Dadios of the VSU Institute of Tropical Ecology and Environmental Science followed with Nursery Management and Agroforestry Systems.

Both sessions drew active participation, with farmers asking questions and contributing their own observations from their farms.

Day 2 moved from the lecture hall to the field. Farmers worked alongside Ms. Dadios and Dr. Barbadillo on practical activities demonstrating the topics covered the previous day, handling soil and water, managing seedlings, and laying out agroforestry systems in actual plots rather than diagrams.

That progression matters. Regenerative agriculture is a set of practices that depend on judgment: how much organic matter a particular soil needs, when to plant, how to arrange species so they support rather than compete with each other, how to hold water on a slope. Those judgments are learned by doing, with someone experienced correcting you. A classroom session can explain the principle. The field session is where the principle becomes a habit.

The half that is often skipped

On the afternoon of Day 2, Dr. Karen Luz P. Yap of the VSU Department of Agricultural Education and Environment led a discussion-workshop on Organizational Development, focused on strengthening leadership and fostering collaboration to build sustainable community organizations.

This is the part of agricultural training that is frequently treated as an afterthought. A farmer can learn excellent soil management and still fail to benefit from it if the group she belongs to cannot agree on a plan, keep records, resolve a dispute, or negotiate collectively with a buyer. Regenerative practices often require coordination, shared nurseries, collective marketing, joint water management, which means the health of the organization is not a soft complement to the technical work. It is a precondition for it.

Placing organizational development on the same agenda as soil science signals that the convenors understood this. The two topics were not competing for time; they were addressing two halves of the same problem.

Why this matters on an island like Siargao

Siargao’s agricultural economy is dominated by coconut. More than 34,000 hectares, roughly 55 percent of the island’s land area—is devoted to coconut farming, with 17,971 registered coconut farmers. Many of those farms are small, aging, and vulnerable to the typhoons that pass through the region with increasing regularity.

Siargao also carries the environmental costs of its own success as a tourism destination. Research by the Asian Development Bank has linked the surge in visitor arrivals to a sharp rise in waste generation, with each visitor producing roughly 0.3 kilograms of solid waste per day across a typical seven-day stay.

Del Carmen has been working on both problems. The municipality has recorded a 25 percent reduction in unmanaged waste over recent years, and its ecotourism model, anchored in mangrove protection has been associated with a rise in average family income and a reduction in poverty incidence from 69 percent in 2010 to 21 percent by 2024.

Regenerative agriculture connects to that record in practical ways. Soil and water conservation reduces input costs and protects yields against dry spells. Agroforestry diversifies income beyond copra and reduces erosion on sloping land. Circular production methods, turning farm and fishery by-products into inputs or products rather than waste, address the same waste stream the municipality has been trying to shrink. The techniques taught over the two days are not separate from Del Carmen’s circular economy agenda. They are the agricultural expression of it.

Where the training sits: Green LGUs and the EU-PH partnership

The training was convened under the EU-Philippines Green Economy Partnership, a programme funded by a €60 million (approximately ₱3.67 billion) grant from the European Union under its Global Gateway initiative, running from 2023 to 2028.

The partnership is spearheaded by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and co-led by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Energy. Its Specific Objective 2, Green LGUs, is implemented by UNDP Philippines and focuses on enhancing circular economy practices among local governments in collaboration with the private sector and civil society, with attention to youth, gender equality, disability and social inclusion, and a just transition.

Del Carmen is one of the first ten Tier 1 local government units in the programme, alongside Baguio, Caloocan, Pasig, Quezon City, Iloilo, Ormoc, Davao, Puerto Princesa, and the Island Garden City of Samal.

Within that framework, AGREA Foundation works with iLAJA and the Municipality of Del Carmen through the Para Sa Isla initiative, supporting People’s Organizations in transforming local resources into sustainable products and strengthening their enterprises.

The people who convened it

The training brought together an unusually wide set of actors for a two-day event.

The VSU Extension Office led the delivery, with Dr. Catherine C. Arradaza as Director for Extension and Ganessa Rose G. Cuevas as Component Leader. Ms. Christine De Siree D. Jodloman, Executive Director of AGREA, welcomed participants through a video message, and Dr. Fidel Jr. III T. Gonzales, Municipal Agriculturist of Del Carmen, also addressed the group—both emphasizing the role of capacity-building in climate-resilient agricultural systems and island food security.

Mr. Jerry B. Salino Jr., President and CEO of iLAJA Inc., provided the rationale and overview of the activity. Mr. Mark Dalin, Stakeholders and Engagement Lead at UNDP, delivered closing remarks on Day 1, connecting the training to the partnership’s work on community resilience.

On Day 2, Mayor Alfredo M. Coro II attended and expressed appreciation to the VSU team and organizers, linking the training to initiatives the municipality has already begun and describing the partnerships formed through the activity as essential to its sustainable rural development efforts.

That combination, a state university, a youth-led local NGO, a national foundation, a UN agency, and a municipal government, is not incidental. Each actor contributed something the others could not. VSU brought the technical depth. iLAJA brought local grounding and operational knowledge of Siargao’s farm economy. AGREA brought programme experience and links to the broader partnership. UNDP brought the Green LGUs framework. The municipality brought convening power and the policy environment in which the practices will either take root or fade.

What the training does not yet prove

Eighty farmers completing a two-day workshop is an input, not an outcome. The training has not yet demonstrated changes in farm practices, yields, income, or soil health. Those results depend on whether participants apply what they learned, whether they have the resources to do so, and whether the organizations they belong to can support the transition over multiple seasons.

The organizational development session faces a similar test. A discussion-workshop can clarify what good leadership and collaboration look like. Whether a farmers’ association actually changes how it plans, records, and decides is a question that can only be answered by watching it operate.

What the two days do establish is that the technical and organizational pieces were treated together, that the instruction came from specialists rather than generalists, and that the municipal government, a state university, and local partners were willing to show up in the same room. Those are conditions. They are necessary, and they are not sufficient.

The work after the workshop

For the farmers who attended, the next steps are concrete and unglamorous: build the nursery, test the nutrient management plan on a real plot, prune the agroforestry system in the second year, bring the association’s records up to date, and negotiate the next sale as a group rather than as individuals.

For the convenors, the next step is follow-through, whether the iCARE Philippines model continues in Del Carmen, and whether the practices introduced over two days are supported through the seasons in which they will either work or fail.

We are glad to have been part of convening this training alongside iLAJA Siargao, the VSU Extension Office, and the Municipality of Del Carmen. The harder work is the part that happens on the farm, after the workshop ends.

To learn more about AGREA Foundation’s work on regenerative agriculture and circular economy livelihoods in Siargao, explore our official channels. Organizations and local governments interested in the Para Sa Isla initiative or the Green LGUs programme can reach out through our contact page.