Activity :Entrefarm Game Training

Date of Conduct :26 to 27 September 2006

Venue :Multi-Purpose Hall, Parian, Sigma, CApiz

No. of Participants :25 (3M; 20F)

Objectives:

To enhance the ARB producers’ skills to become future entrepreneurs. Specifically, it aims to:

1. develop their knowledge in identifying the weaknesses and strengths of their projects;
2. develop their techniques in forecasting their production capacity in correlation with their market or desired sales;
3. reinforce their capabilities in planning and in handling problems besetting their projects; and
4. improve their skills in negotiating and linkaging with financial institutions and buyers for their financial, marketing and other needs.

Methodology :Role-playing/ Workshop method

Learnings/ Evaluation:

The two-day training is a simulation of the actual production activities that the ARBs are practicing in their respective areas. The participants were grouped in accordance with their own existing projects: rice farming, sugarcane production, hog fattening and cultivation of potted plants.

Since they are familiar with their own project, they have easily identified the cost of inputs used and the calendar of activities in one production cycle.

In the process, the participants noted that they are not so aware of the excessive spending of their budget, particularly for their household expenses, the reason that they always need to borrow money from lending institutions. They realized that this is the main reason why they cannot pay their loans in spite of the considerable income they get from their enterprise. At the end of the game, they were not able to redeem their mortgaged properties from the banks.

Other learnings as experienced by the participants:

® There is a need to canvass prices of buying firms (traders, retailers, market centers, etc.) so that they could sell their products at a better price.

® They should plan their production activities, so that their harvest will fall at a season where their products are bought at a high price

® They should keenly scrutinize the policies of each lending institution so that they could identify what policies are more favorable to their projects.

® They should keep track the record of their activities so they may know what made them lose or win after each project cycle.

Check out the pictures!