BAGUIO CITY (PIA) – Four young farmers excelled at the Young Farmers Challenge (YFC) Regional Start-Up Competition in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), highlighting the important role of youth in agriculture.
The program aims to encourage young people to return to farming and agribusiness and help address the problem of aging farmers.
In the Production Category, the two winners are from Kalinga. The JD’s Hito Production owned by Joshua R. Dao-wan that produces embutido made from hito (catfish) sourced from his own farm.
Harvest and Hatch owned by Reymar P. Omeccas offers chicken pastil and chicken jerky from his poultry farm that produces chickens and eggs.
In the Processing Category, the winners are John Glenn B. Libag of Benguet with his wines, dried goods, strawberry alamang, strawberry hot sauce, and other processed food items., and Ryan A. Rebolledo from Kalinga with his Beancharon, or white beans chicharron.
Each winner will receive P150,000.00 in start-up capital to help grow and expand their businesses. The awarding ceremony is on February 27, 2026.
According to May-Ann C. Tuba-ang of the Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Division of the Department of Agriculture-Cordillera, the program is designed to bring young people back to agriculture.
“Ang isang goal rin nito is to encourage the youth to go back to farming, balik tanaw sa farming. Kasi one of the challenges in agriculture now is the aging farmers. So, this is one of the programs that encourages the youth to enter into agriculture,” Tuba-ang said.
She added that the competition offers financial support for start-ups and expansion.
“It provides them an opportunity to start their businesses. Especially for processing in production, if they wish to incorporate technologies, innovations in the farm, may gagamitin sila. So, for the startup and even the upscale, it’s an additional source for the capital. Para mapalago nila yung enterprise kasi it can end up to production or it can proceed to processing.”
Tuba-ang also emphasized the continued support beyond the cash grant.
“We make sure that they’re on the right track. As to their products, of course, we support yung product promotion. So, if we have trade fairs, we invite them. And then if mga ganyan na processed foods, as I announced a while ago, that we can sponsor yung analysis. And then we encourage them to comply with the regulatory if they’re processing food, FDA. So, we provide support doon. If kailangan nila ng assistance on registering the same with DTI, we provide those. But also to continuously support yung promotions ng product nila para mas wider yung reach niya,” she said.
Frenzi Maian Evilla of Shroomami, one of the presenters, shared that the program has helped grow their business, from establishing connections to trainings and producing better quality products through the grants.
“Nagkaroon kami ng lakas ng loob na ipakilala sa market kung ano yung nagawa naming product. And by that, yun po nakilala unti-unti yung product namin which is masaya po kami doon kasi maliit lang siya natulong pero sobrang laki ng impact po sa amin as dreamers,” Evilla said. **DEG-PIA-CAR w/ BSU intern Kyla Grande
