The Bagnos Multi-Purpose Cooperative is transforming the lives of farmers here with its rice coffee enterprise, which hit around PHP3.2 million in sales in 2024.
With a startup capital of only PHP4,457 in 2000, the cooperative now has an asset size of PHP77 million – a success story that Amelia Bautista, project manager, ascribed to community-driven entrepreneurship, sustainable business practices, and government support.
As rice is one of their main products, the 1,500-member cooperative started a rice coffee business in 2008 through the convergence effort of the local government unit of Banna, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
DOLE initially granted the cooperative PHP895,500 in 2008 for equipment and tools for rice coffee processing, while DAR, under its Village-Level Farm Enterprise Development Program, donated a rice coffee production building worth PHP1.2 million.
In 2014, the cooperative received an additional PHP2.2 million from other government agencies that assisted them in improving and marketing their products.
At present, the Bagnos Multi-Purpose Cooperative is the leading producer of Banna Blend Rice Coffee products, empowering its rice farmer-members who produce the main raw material giving them a competitive edge in the market.
Aside from rice coffee production, the cooperative has diversified into consumer store, credit and savings, agri-inputs trading, palay trading, butchering and meat processing, hog, goat, and cow raising, as well as farm equipment rentals, earning them both international and national awards as an outstanding agricultural cooperative.
“We are so thankful for these government support programs and projects which have uplifted the lives of members and the entire community as a whole,” Bautista said.
With an asset size of PHP77 million 25 years after its inception, the cooperative is now in the process of giving back to the community by sharing its best practices so that other similar organizations could follow suit, Bautista added. (PNA)
