Wave 22 Graduates: 21 Scholars Complete Organic Agriculture Production NC II at AGREA Farm School

Twenty-one scholars of AGREA Farm School’s Wave 22 completed Organic Agriculture Production NC II and passed TESDA assessment. They graduated on July 30 in Marinduque.

Thirty-two days, one certificate, and a different starting point

On July 30, AGREA Farm School held its graduation ceremony for Wave 22 of the Organic Agriculture Production (OAP) NC II program. Twenty-one graduates received their certificates after completing 32 days of hands-on training in Marinduque and passing the TESDA National Competency Assessment.

The ceremony is a milestone, but it is not the beginning of the story. Most of these graduates arrived at the Farm School in Barangay Cawit, Boac with practical knowledge of farming and limited access to the credential that would let them use it—in employment, in government programs, or in an enterprise of their own. The NC II is that credential.

What the graduates actually completed

Organic Agriculture Production NC II is not a short course in gardening. It is a full TESDA qualification of 232 hours, and it is assessed against national standards rather than against a trainer’s judgment.

The qualification is built from basic, common, core, and elective competencies. The basic units cover workplace communication, teamwork, career professionalism, and occupational health and safety. The common units cover safety measures in farm operations, the use of farm tools and equipment, estimation and basic calculation, records keeping, and developing and updating industry knowledge. The core units are where the practical work sits: raising organic chicken, producing organic vegetables, producing organic fertilizer, and producing various concoctions and extracts. Trainees may also take electives in raising organic hogs or organic small ruminants.

At AGREA Farm School, the cohort compresses this into 32 days of intensive, full-time training. The Farm School is the first TESDA-accredited farm school in Marinduque and operates as an accredited private extension service provider for TESDA Marinduque on a two-hectare property in Barangay Cawit, Boac.

The competency assessment is the point at which the training is tested. Candidates demonstrate practical tasks, answer oral questions about the reasoning behind their actions, and complete a written examination. A National Certificate is issued only when a candidate has demonstrated competence in every required unit. It is valid for five years.

Who the graduates are

The Wave 22 cohort trained under the Coconut Farmers Scholarship Program (CFSP), a TESDA scholarship implemented under Republic Act No. 11524, the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act.

The CFSP provides free skills training, a free national competency assessment, a training support fund of ₱160 per day, and free entrepreneurship training. Eligibility is specific: applicants must be Filipino citizens, at least 18 years old by the end of training, a coconut farmer or a dependent of one, and registered in the National Coconut Farmers Registry System of the Philippine Coconut Authority.

That eligibility rule explains the composition of the cohort. These are not general applicants. They are people connected to coconut farming—an activity that produces income in lumps, separated by long intervals, and rarely sufficient on its own for a household. The CFSP is designed to give them a second viable line: vegetables, native chicken, organic fertilizer and concoctions, or employment in an organic enterprise.

What was said at the ceremony

TESDA Marinduque Acting Provincial Director Mr. Erwin Buñag delivered the commencement address. He reminded the graduates that skills can change lives, and encouraged them to treat their new competencies not merely as certificates but as tools for creating opportunities, supporting their families, strengthening their communities, and contributing to a more food-secure future.

Ms. Menchie J. Revarez, Farm School Administrator and a TESDA-listed trainer for the qualification, framed the ceremony as a beginning rather than an ending. Her point was practical: the graduates now hold knowledge and skills that position them to contribute to the agriculture sector and to practice sustainable farming in their own communities.

The two remarks point in the same direction. A certificate is evidence of competence at a point in time. What follows—the farm, the enterprise, the cooperative, the job—is a separate undertaking.

One graduate’s trajectory

AGREA has documented what that separate undertaking can look like. Janet, a member of the Wave 22 cohort, described at the graduation ceremony how she had lost interest in agriculture after limited early success with farming. During the pandemic she returned to her hometown and began growing herbs, which renewed her interest in the sector.

She enrolled in OAP NC II under the CFSP, completed the 32 days of training in organic farming, sustainable crop production, and livestock management, and has since applied the training directly: she now grows vegetables on family land and raises pigs, with plans to expand her livelihood in Marinduque.

Her account is a single case, not a trend. But it describes the specific transition the program is designed to enable—from disengagement to applied practice—and it is the kind of outcome that a training certificate alone cannot produce. The certificate made the practice legible; the practice is hers.

Why the Farm School exists within a larger model

AGREA’s mission is to help eradicate poverty for farming and fishing families, alleviate the effects of climate change, and contribute to food security in the Philippines. Its primary mechanism in Marinduque is the One Island Economy model, a framework for a self-sustaining island economy built on zero hunger, zero waste, and zero insufficiency, with the stated vision of establishing the first replicable One Island Economy model in the country by 2035.

The Farm School is one expression of that model. Its premise is that Marinduque’s agricultural problems are not only agronomic. Farmers have contended with low yields from unsustainable practices, with traders who buy at unfavourable prices, and with an ageing farm population whose children leave the island. The response embedded in the Farm School is to treat farmers as entrepreneurs—people who need technical competence, financial literacy, and the confidence to negotiate rather than merely produce.

The curriculum reflects that. AGREA has described its gender-sensitive training modules as beginning with dream-building, leadership, values formation, and financial literacy before technical agricultural content—a sequence introduced after the school found that fewer than 20 percent of its first cohort of 25 scholars were women.

AGREA has also reported a 98 per cent passing rate in TESDA assessments for the Farm School. That is an institutional claim rather than an independent evaluation, and it should be read as such. What is independently verifiable is the structure: TESDA accreditation, a defined qualification of 232 hours, national assessment, and a certificate that carries across employers and programs.

What the graduation does and does not establish

A graduation ceremony marks completion. It does not establish that the graduates will earn more, that their farms will produce better, or that Marinduque’s food system will change as a result.

Those outcomes depend on conditions the training cannot control: access to land and capital, the reliability of local markets, the cost of inputs, the weather, and the support available in the months after the certificate is issued. Some graduates will apply the training immediately. Others will use it to seek employment. Others may find that the constraints around them are heavier than the skills they have gained.

The honest measure of a cohort is not the ceremony. It is what the graduates are doing two or three seasons later—and whether the institutions around them, including AGREA, are still present when the practices either work or fail.

What comes next

For the graduates, the immediate next steps are concrete: apply for the positions or programs the certificate makes them eligible for, test a production plan on real land, keep records of what is spent and earned, and use the entrepreneurship training that came with the scholarship.

For the Farm School, the next step is the next cohort—recruitment, training, assessment, and the follow-through that turns a 32-day program into a durable livelihood.

For TESDA Marinduque and the Philippine Coconut Authority, which administers the registry that determines CFSP eligibility, the next step is to keep the pipeline open so that coconut farmers and their dependents can continue to access the qualification.

We congratulate the 21 graduates of Wave 22. The certificate is earned. The work it enables is ahead of you.

Learn more

To learn more about AGREA Farm School’s programs and TESDA scholarship opportunities in Marinduque, visit AGREA Foundation’s official channels or inquire directly with the Farm School in Barangay Cawit, Boac. Interested applicants can also coordinate with TESDA Marinduque for CFSP eligibility and documentary requirements.