Tuesday Jul 12, 2022

QCP #025 | Jairus Ferrer, Agricultural Entrepreneur | How the Youth are Taking on the Food Crisis in the Philippines

GUEST BIO

Jairus Ferrer is a agricultural entreprenuer from Philippines. With family roots in Mindanao, the southernmost region of the Philippines, he decided to leave the congested, fast-paced city after thirteen years in favor of a more steady-paced, semi-rural, widely untapped area to get in touch with nature and get involved in economic development in rural communities.

When Jairus was a boy, his family's shrimp farm was affected by red tide. It was a devastating blow from which it could never recover. Feeling insecure about not knowing what to take up as a career, Jairus decided to take what he called a gap year after high school.

During this gap year, he and his father (my dad's twin brother) enrolled in a local organization that offered entrepreneurship intensives in the agricultural industry. There, Jairus learned the necessary skills, both on the farm and the business side, that led him to what he eventually aspires to do for Mindanao and all over the country. To bring back food security, develop infrastructure, and inject a youthful spirit into the once-mighty agriculture industry of the Philippines.

What was only supposed to be a four-month entrepreneurship education program turned into a five-year position with the same institution that taught him. After completing the course, Jai began working for the same institution to help train batches of the enrolling students. Then, with moral and extra financial support from the program, he traveled around the Philippines. A few years later, Jai co-founded Pronic Foods, a short-lived organic distribution start-up and later founded iFarms, Inc., an agri-tech corporation, a company which he is currently leading.

In this conversation, you'll find out about agricultural entrepreneurship in the Philippines, and what is currently in place to improve food security and distribution for a country in crisis that is in dire need to re-establish its once-independent reliance on the abundant farmers and farmlands that once comprised nearly 40% of the workforce of the philippines.

I invite you all to listen in on this conversation with one of the many people that is helping improve the food systems in the Philippines, who I am very grateful gave his time to share his experience, his enthusiasm, and his curious drive to push the boundaries of our agricultural heritage. - please enjoy this conversation with my cousin, my genetic half brother all the way from the Philippines in Mindanao - Jai Ferrer

SHOW NOTES

Segment 1
- Getting your product to market
- Growing Chickens in the Philippines
- "I started to realize that knowledge has evolved " - nature (SNIPS)]
- Modernization vs nature (snip)
- Life back in the province
- Hustle Life in the US
- Permaculture in the Philippines (snippets Here)
- Bamboo Architecture
- Food Security in the Philippines Outlook
- The decline of farm life in the Philippines
- Development in Rural Communities
Seg 2
- Is there an agricultural youth movement in the Philippines?
- Ticktock (ask to keep?)
- Sparking agricultural activities
- Reforesting the countryside (replenishing and replacing snippet)
- Challenges of Rural Businesses
- Typical day for an Agricultural Entrepreneur
- Supporting Local (snip)
- Agricultural Subsidies
- Acceptance and Boundaries
Seg 3
- Ancestry
- Napoleon Hill
- International Rice Research institute
- Helping Communities that need more talent
- Asking for help and advice
- Waste Management

QCP #025 | Jairus Ferrer, Agricultural Entrepreneur | How the Youth are Taking on the Food Crisis in the Philippines

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