Agricultural officials from India and the Philippines committed last month to a series of joint ventures aimed at strengthening farming cooperatives in both countries, including shared technology programs and a direct trade portal for commodities such as Philippine cocoa and Indian grain.
The pledge came out of the India-Philippines Stakeholders Meeting on Agricultural Cooperatives, convened by the Philippine Cooperative Development Authority and the Network for the Development of Agricultural Cooperatives in Asia and the Pacific, known as NEDAC, in Makati City. Representatives from government agencies, cooperatives and farm federations attended.
The two sides agreed to establish cooperative-to-cooperative trade platforms and launch pilot projects in dairy, rice and fisheries. Officials framed the collaboration as a South-South partnership — one designed to pair India’s large-scale cooperative structures with the Philippines’ community-based models to counter rising production costs and market volatility.
Technology transfer was a central theme. Philippine officials expressed interest in adopting India’s computerized system for Primary Agriculture Credit Societies, which provides core banking, online registration and streamlined digital audits. The parties also discussed introducing Indian nano-fertilizers and agricultural drones to Philippine farms, along with AI-driven market intelligence tools and automated weather stations for crop forecasting.
The CDA set a target of a 20% productivity increase and 10% gains in long-term sustainability by 2028.
On financing, the CDA said it was studying India’s National Cooperative Development Corporation as a model for helping cooperatives access funding through market borrowing and government-guaranteed loans — an approach intended to reduce dependence on commercial banks.
NEDAC will serve as the primary conduit for capacity building, arranging training for Philippine cooperative leaders at Indian institutions focused on governance and cooperative law. Officials said the goal was to reposition cooperatives as economic actors rather than primarily social organizations, citing India’s Amul dairy cooperative and the Unnati Cooperative as operational templates.
A follow-on bilateral session between NEDAC and CDA outlined a strategic roadmap for institutional reform, including cooperative consolidation to achieve economies of scale and the expansion of AI-powered credit systems to broaden financial inclusion.
Speakers at the meeting included CDA Chairperson Alexander B. Raquepo, Food and Agriculture Organization representative Lionel Dabbadie, NEDAC’s Samitha Manohar and CDA Administrator Emmanuel M. Santiaguel. Also present were delegates from the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Plant Industry, the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority and several regional farming federations.
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