Regenerative Agriculture and Organizational Development: Inside Two Days of Training in Del Carmen, Siargao

Eighty farmers in Del Carmen, Siargao spent two days on soil, water, nurseries and agroforestry—and on the organizational work that sustains them.

The afternoon the field work stopped

By the second afternoon, the practical sessions were done. The soil samples had been taken, the seedlings potted, the agroforestry layouts walked through in the field. What followed was not another demonstration.

The group sat down to work on organizational development — how their associations plan, decide, keep records, resolve disagreements, and hold together when a season goes badly.

That session is the reason this training is worth describing in full. A two-day programme that spends its final hours on governance rather than agronomy is making an argument: that a practice change on a farm depends on a group strong enough to sustain it.

On 18–19 June 2026, AGREA Foundation convened the Para sa Isla: Capacity Building on Regenerative Agriculture and Organizational Development in Del Carmen, Surigao del Norte. The technical sessions were delivered by the Visayas State University Extension Office through the first leg of its iCARE Philippines programme, in partnership with iLAJA Siargao and AGREA-Siargao. Around 80 farmers from the municipality filled the Del Carmen Women's Center for the opening sessions.

What the two days covered

Day one was lecture-based, and specific. 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 questions and counter-examples from the farmers, which is the useful test of whether a lecture is landing. Del Carmen's farmers have worked these soils and slopes for generations; a session on nutrient management is a conversation with people who already know what happens when a hillside is left bare through a wet season.

Day two moved outdoors. Farmers worked with Ms. Dadios and Dr. Barbadillo on practical activities that carried the previous day's topics into the field — handling soil and water, managing seedlings, laying out an agroforestry system in ground rather than on a diagram. Mayor Alfredo M. Coro II attended and spoke about the municipal initiatives that would benefit from the training.

Then, in the afternoon, Dr. Karen Luz P. Yap of the VSU Department of Agricultural Education and Environment led the organizational development discussion-workshop.

The opening session had set the frame. Ms. Christine De Siree D. Jodloman, AGREA's Executive Director, greeted participants by video message, followed by Dr. Fidel Jr. III T. Gonzales, the municipality's agriculture and fisheries officer. Both stressed why capacity-building matters for climate-resilient agricultural systems and island food security. Mr. Jerry B. Salino Jr., President and CEO of iLAJA Inc., gave the rationale and overview of the programme, and Mr. Mark Dalin, Stakeholders and Engagement Lead at UNDP, closed the first day by connecting the activity to UNDP's community resilience work.

Why organizing counts as farming

Regenerative practice is rarely a solo activity.

A nursery that supplies a barangay needs someone to keep it watered and shaded through a dry spell. An agroforestry system needs a planting plan that several households agree to follow. Organic inputs need preparation in batches, on a schedule, with materials sourced collectively. Water conservation on a slope is a decision that only works if the farmers uphill and downhill make it together.

None of that happens without an organization that can plan, allocate, and enforce its own agreements. This is the gap that organizational development addresses, and it is the reason the Para sa Isla Project works through People's Organizations rather than individual farmers.

Our published framing of the project states the premise directly: "We believe that the solutions to our most pressing environmental challenges do not come from outside; they emerge from within communities when people are empowered with knowledge, resources, and the freedom to innovate." Our role, in that framing, is "to walk alongside communities, providing technical support, facilitating connections, and amplifying local innovations."

Two People's Organizations in Del Carmen show what that capacity looks like when it exists.

DELCABESA is a People's Organization led by Bernadette Espuerta that turns discarded materials into reusable bags and other products. It is not waiting for an external solution; it has built an enterprise out of what its community throws away, and in doing so has created income for members who had been excluded from formal work.

KAMAMANA — the Kaanib ng mga Mangingisda at Magsasaka ng Numancia Aqua-Agrikultura — was established in Del Carmen in 2011 and has organised around protecting the municipality's environment and natural resources, including mud crab production. Some former mangrove cutters eventually joined the organization, which is the kind of conversion that only happens when a group has enough standing to offer someone a different livelihood.

Neither organization is a beneficiary of a training. Both are institutions with their own histories, and the point of capacity building is to strengthen what they already carry.

Where circular economy fits

The Para sa Isla Project is funded through the EU–Philippines Green Economy Partnership — a €60 million (₱3.67 billion) programme running from 2023 to 2028, led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources with the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Energy, and part of the EU's Global Gateway initiative. Specific Objective 2, Green LGUs, is implemented by UNDP and supports municipalities in advancing inclusive, locally led circular economy transitions, with a stated focus on youth and gender equality. Del Carmen is one of the first ten Tier 1 local government units in the programme.

The grant facility that funds civil society work in these LGUs is explicitly open to "sector-based people's organizations" alongside CSOs, NGOs, and academic institutions — which is why the organizational half of the training is not a soft add-on to the environmental half.

The connection between the farm-level sessions and circular economy is practical rather than conceptual. Organic waste that is composted and returned to the soil is a circular practice and a nutrient management decision at the same time. Coconut husks transformed into products, farm waste converted into inputs, plastic collected and repurposed — these reduce what a household buys and what a barangay buries. The Para sa Isla page describes the project's participants as "women transforming coconut husks into useful products, farmers creating organic fertilizers from agricultural waste, fisherfolk developing systems to collect and repurpose ocean plastics, and youth designing innovative solutions for their barangays," and describes the establishment of community farms in every barangay as "living laboratories for regenerative practices."

That is what the two days in June were building toward: not a set of techniques held individually, but a set of practices a community can run.

The ecological side of that agenda has since become visible at municipal scale. On 22 July 2026, the Del Carmen Mangrove Reserve was formally launched as a Wetland of International Importance — Ramsar Site No. 2553 — recognising one of the Philippines' largest mangrove forests. Mayor Coro described it as the culmination of nearly a decade of collaborative conservation: "It took 10 years in the making—from impossible to possible."

What the training does and does not establish

A two-day training is an input, and it should be described as one.

It does not establish that the 80 farmers who attended have changed their soil management, adopted agroforestry, or built nurseries. It does not establish that any People's Organization has revised how it plans or keeps records, or that the organizational development session produced a single new procedure. Those outcomes depend on what happens over the following seasons — whether the practices fit the labour and land available, whether a group can sustain a collective decision through a bad month, and whether the convenors return.

What the training does establish is that the technical and organizational halves were treated as one programme rather than two, that the instruction came from specialists in soil science, ecology, and agricultural education, and that a municipal government, a state university, a local NGO, and a national foundation put their people in the same room. Those are conditions for change. They are not the change itself.

What comes next

For the farmers who attended, the next steps are concrete: take the sampling method to their own plots before the next planting, pot seedlings they actually intend to plant, and test one agroforestry arrangement on a small area before committing a field.

For the People's Organizations, the next step is the harder one — deciding whether the practices discussed become shared activities with named responsibilities and a schedule, or remain individual habits that fade when the season gets busy.

For those of us who convened the training, the obligation is follow-through. A first leg of an extension programme is a test of whether the model can be sustained beyond a single visit. The farmers who participated will need support in the months when the practices either work or fail.

A note of appreciation

To the VSU Extension Office team under Dr. Catherine C. Arradaza and Component Leader Ganessa Rose G. Cuevas, and to Dr. Barbadillo, Ms. Dadios, and Dr. Yap for the instruction. To Mr. Salino and iLAJA Siargao, to the Municipal Government of Del Carmen under Mayor Coro, and to the farmers and People's Organizations who gave two days to it.

The knowledge that matters most is the kind that survives the trip home.

To learn more about the Para sa Isla Project and AGREA Foundation's work on regenerative agriculture and circular economy livelihoods in Siargao, explore our official channels. Organisations and local governments interested in the Green LGUs programme or in collaborating with People's Organizations in Del Carmen can reach out through our contact page.