For the sixth installment of the Aggie Ps Talk 5.0 two more AgriCOOLture Youth Champions were featured. They were Ms. Eva Mae Nares, The Millennial Farmer vlogger and Mr. Joshua Aragon, CEO of Zagana.com. 

To formally open the session, the National Crop Protection Center (NCPC) Director Melvin D. Ebuenga delivered a short but meaningful message. He hopes that the youth, through the series of webinars, will see that agriculture or farming is a lucrative vocation. He also expects that the participants will learn from the experiences to be shared by the speakers and be inspired to enter the industry that feeds the people. 

Inspiring the youth through vlogging

Emphasizing on the importance of the youth in the development and sustainability of the agriculture industry, Ms. Eva Mae Nares of the Millennial Farmer PH vlog, shared her presentation on “The Role of the Millennials, the Gen Z, and the Younger Generations in Uplifting the Agriculture Space.” She said that because of the youth’s entrepreneurial spirit, curiosity towards technology and inventions, interest in organic farming, and the strong desire to make a positive impact while doing something they love, they are the best people to engage in agriculture during this time when farmers are now aging. 

Ms. Nares started her vlog in 2019 as a means to share her advocacy in inspiring the youth to venture into farming and to break the stigma in farming one by one. As if working in the corporate industry in the morning, being a millennial farmer in the afternoon and on weekends, Ms. Nares has also been recently affiliated with YFarmers. Through this, she is able to grow her network of young farmers, expand her knowledge on farming, and continuously promote agriculture as a cool and profitable industry. 

While she is admittedly not an expert in agriculture, Ms. Nares is open to learning both from the traditional farmers and her co-youth farmers. She hopes to one day become a full-time agripreneur and be part of the vital industry that feeds the world.  

Helping farmers through instant commerce

The second speaker also takes advantage of technology in promoting agriculture. Mr. Joshua Aragon is the founder and CEO of Zagana.com, a platform that aims to uplift lives using technology and to bridge the gap between producers and consumers. Zagana.com serves as the marketing arm of various farmers and allows the delivery of produce to consumers within Metro Manila in 30 minutes or less.

Having only been founded in January 2020, the imposition of lockdowns in the country due to the pandemic has forced the team behind Zagana.com to think about how they will continue serving their stakeholders. They then decided to open their website on March 16 for individual consumers. They also shifted from traditional e-commerce to instant commerce to address the problems with late deliveries or unavailability of produce. 

Zagana.com works towards the establishment of a food secure Philippines while providing better livelihood to farmers. They help farmers solve their marketing and logistics problems, and promise good food and good health to consumers by preserving the food’s freshness from harvest to delivery at every turn. Aside from this, Mr. Aragon also shared that they envision Zagana.com to help make food production the preferred livelihood by showcasing that farming is a very respectable field. 

Closing the session was NCPC Deputy Director April N. Alviar. She thanked the speakers as well as the attendees. She hopes that the attendees are now more inspired to engage into agriculture. She also emphasized that farming is not only getting one’s hands dirty, but it is a way of life. 

This is the fifth season of the CAFS webinar series, Rebooting Agriculture in the New Normal: Webfresher Courses. 

Watch the episode through CAFS YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UnHJi7noKI

By Alyssa Kaye S. Mojar