Faced with the lack of capital, limited livelihood projects, insufficient know-how on marketing of produce– Dante Alcazar, a farmer cooperator on vegetables and dairy from the CALABARZON region, adopted various agriculture-based enterprise programs introduced through the Community-based Participatory Action Research (CPAR) project “Dairy Buffalo and Vegetable Farming in Dolores, Quezon.”

Along with other farmer cooperators on vegetables and dairy of Barangay Antonino and San Mateo, Alcazar attended seminars and trainings on raising dairy buffalo and dairy buffalo milk production using upgraded buffaloes, among others. With the introduction of dairy processing technologies of milk and milk-by-products, farmers now have another source of income aside from planting vegetables; hence increasing their income by 10%.

“Dati po noong wala pa pong CPAR ay inuutang ko ‘yung aking mga ginagamit sa pagtatanim. Dahil doon, lahat ng kita ko ay napupunta lang sa bayad sa utang. Pero noong dumating po ang CPAR, binigyan po kami ng power spray, binhi, at tsaka ‘yung mga kailangan pa po naming mga gamit. Nakakapagtanim na rin kami ng dalawang beses sa isang taon imbis na isa lang,” he said.

CPAR is one of the DA-BAR's banner programs that aims to empower farming and fishing communities through information-based decision-making. Utilizing the community-based approach, CPAR is geared toward verifying the technical and economic feasibility of mature technologies in specific locations and at the farmers’ level prior to widespread adoption.