Another major development related program facilitated by the ESED is the “S&T-based Sweetpotato Value Development in Tarlac, Albay and Yolanda-affected areas in Leyte and Samar”. This was developed under the Industry Strategic Program (ISP) of PCAARRD with multi-million peso funding and was already on its second year of implementation in 2017. This program aimed to develop the sweetpotato based industries in the selected sites of the Philippines. This was divided into three projects; the first one is facilitated by the partners from Tarlac Agriculture University (TAU), the second one is managed by the partners from Albay Provincial Agriculture Office and the third is the one facilitated by the Philrootcrops which is working with the clients from the Yolanda-affected areas of Leyte and Samar. VSU-Philrootcrops is also the lead agency of the program. The program strengthened further the industries in Tarlac and Albay and also has now established start-up sweetpotato-based value chains in Leyte and Samar through the Value Chain Approach (VCA). The value chain approach to development provided high hopes for sustainability as interventions were introduced from the production up to the utilization component of the chains. Activities include developing the production areas by supplying the appropriate varieties for processing, introducing the good practices for sweet potato production, introducing improvements in the processing, promoting utilization through social marketing and linking the chain actors to the appropriate Business Development Providers for funding and technical supports. It also conducted capability building and technical assistance in the preparation of development plans for the advanced POs like the Leyte Agricultural Producers Cooperative (LAPCO) in Isabel and in partnership with VSU Isabel. In the picture is a courtesy call with Governor Salceda of Albay during the inception meeting, at earlier year of project implementation.

The program utilized the Farm Business School (FBS) approach to information and technology transfer. FBS is a business-cycle long training and mentoring process at the community level being facilitated with the help of LGU-based facilitators trained ahead at the start of implementation. The FBS consists of 7 Modules; FBS planning and targeting, group formation and strengthening, introduction to marketing and business concepts, identifying and prioritizing innovations (practical value chain assessment), testing of innovations (including special topics identified such as packaging, product quality and operations standards, GMP compliance, food safety, record keeping, etc.), accessing to business development services (BDS), and business planning. For Region 8 alone, this program is facilitating the development of 12 sweetpotato value chains in 8 partner municipalities. The products produced by the value chains are chips, jams, ketchup, beverages, noodles, among others, and is still continuing to develop various products from sweetpotato like the vacuum fried SP which is now ready for introduction to interested takers or entrepreneurs. The program is also promoting the zero-waste processing systems, training the processors to utilize the supposed wastes from sweet potato to increase value addition. The pictures below are the FBS sessions of the POs and the group picture of their representatives during the stakeholder validation workshop.