PRRM’s sustainable livelihood and enterprise development strategy aims to contribute to household food security, increased incomes, and building sustainable livelihood systems.

Sustainable Agriculture

Promotion of agricultural practices that protect the soil and water resources, reduce farming costs, and increase farm income through the introduction of low external input agricultural production, integrated farming systems, and crop diversification.

• Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture or LEISA is currently gaining ground and acceptance by farmers from both developed and developing countries. The approach combines the best traditional inputs with organic, mineral, and inorganic sources to suit crop and soil requirements in order to attain higher yields while maintaining soil fertility and promoting ecological balance.

• The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has been tested to significantly increase rice yield from the country’s average of 3.5 tons per hectare to 12-15 tons while maintaining soil fertility, without the use of modern seeds and chemical fertilizers, and even less irrigation water. PRRM and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) are jointly documenting SRI practice and validating results in a three-year project covering five (5) provinces (Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Camarines Sur, Negros Occidental and North Cotabato).

• The SRI is perceived by PRRM as best complemented by the use of SeaCrop, the brand name of its fortified organic fertilizer products. SeaCrop introduces another innovation to PRRM’s advocacy for sustainable agriculture by reducing cost of production while at the same time attaining better yields. The production technology converts organic and farm wastes such as bagasse, ash, manure, seaweed, and fish into scientifically formulated fertilizers, and promotes low external input and soil fertility management practices.

  SeaCrop is the result of more than 16 years of research and has been proven effective over four (4) rice cropping periods by more than 600 farmer adopters in Cotabato, Davao del Sur, and other provinces in Mindanao. SeaCrop is a joint project of scientist Jose Iriga, PRRM, and the Center for Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Iloilo.

Social Enterprise Development

• PRRM has helped establish social enterprises around industry-based, value-adding activities as well as alternative livelihood schemes. Alternative trading and marketing (ATM) operations are most advanced in Nueva Ecija, where PRRM has entered into a joint venture on rice trading and micro-finance with the Kooperatibang Likas ng Nueva Ecija or KOOL-NE. PRRM also seeks to facilitate the marketing activities of partner people’s organizations (POs) outside their provinces by linking them to institutional buyers and to POs in other areas through a system called the Rural Reconstruction Trade or RR Trade.

• To support the RR trade system, PRRM entered into a strategic partnership with b2bpricenow.com, a company involved in business-to-business buying and selling over the internet, that makes available up-to-date prices of commodities to guide interested buyers and sellers. The website allows online trading and payment of basic commodities such as rice, corn, sugar, coconut, and bananas. It brings farmers and buyers together by making available current information on prices of commodities and the volume needed by traders.

Alternative Rural Finance

Savings promotion, credit delivery for group projects, micro-finance schemes, and development of credit cooperatives.

• The Lagawe Highlands Rural Bank, Inc. (LHRBI) was launched on December 23,1999 as a result of PRRM’s efforts to assemble civic-minded and financially capable individuals for the establishment of a rural bank in the province of Ifugao. The LHRBI expands the banking services available to people’s organizations and cooperatives, small producers and entrepreneurs, thus playing a key role in the development of marginalized groups as well as the local economy of Ifugao. By design, the bank’s shares of stock will eventually be divested in the future to people’s organizations and cooperatives.

• Micro-finance schemes: joint venture with the Barangay Lati United Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Inc. (BLUMPCI) to provide credit for municipal fisherfolk to engage in micro-enterprises and small businesses in Orion, Bataan; loan guarantee system with a local bank in Cotabato; savings mobilization, credit delivery, and capacity building following the Grameen Bank model for micro-enterprises of low-income families in 15 barangays of the island-province of Camiguin.