The Zanjera Sto. Nino Agriculture Cooperative in Brgy. Bugasi, Banna, Ilocos Norte is set to receive series of trainings on cooperative intellectual capacity, governance and management from the Cooperative Development Project of the College of Business, Economics, and Accountancy (CBEA) with its component project titled “Empowering the Zanjera Sto. Nino Agriculture Cooperative through Cooperative Development,” launched on October 8, 2021.

Through the project, the Mariano Marcos State University, College of Business, Economics and Accountancy (CBEA), the Bachelor of Science in Cooperative Management Program and the Extension Directorate in partnership with the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) – Batac will be enjoining the cooperative’s board of directors, officers, committee chairpersons, employees and personnel, and members to increase the cooperative’s intellectual capacity and improving their skills in governing and managing their cooperative.

The launching of the extension project on October 7, 2021 was part of the first round of activities before conducting series of Capability Enhancement Training on Cooperative Intellectual Capacity for the Officers, Employees, and Members of the Zanjera Sto. Nino Agriculture Cooperative which will run from October – November 2021. The training intends to strengthen the human resources of the cooperative to perform excellently in providing the needs and services of their members, customers, suppliers, and other external entities and for the cooperative to become competitive, profitable, and sustainable.

Another enhancement training series on Cooperative Governance and management will be conducted which intend to strengthen the capabilities of the human resources to govern and manage excellently the cooperative to become a solid and unique business entity, competitive, profitable and sustainable enterprise. The two training series will run from December 2021 to December 2022.

  The training series as part of the Cooperative Development (Coop Dev) Project is spearheaded by the Bachelor of Science in Cooperative Management (BSCM) Program under the Community and Enterprise Development Program (CEDP) of the College.

The program is implemented based from the result of the Needs Assessment Survey in the cooperative conducted by PhilRice – Batac. Several needs of the cooperative were found out that include computer literacy, bookkeeping, mandatory training for cooperative board of directors and officers, training on good governance and fundamentals of parliamentary procedures, minutes of meeting preparation, policy preparation, values reorientation, among others which generally fall into categories of intellectual capacity, governance, and management of the cooperative. As such, the Cooperative Development Project intends to spur growth and development for the officers, employees, and members of the cooperative.

The needs assessment conducted by PhilRice is part of their Business Innovations System (RiceBIS) Community program that educates groups of farmers about rice production technologies combined with marketing approaches that build their business capacity.

Through the expertise of CBEA with the support of PhilRice and MMSU Extension Directorate, the Zanjera Sto. Nino Agriculture Cooperative is envisioned to be another competitive and sustainable agriculture cooperative. The cooperative is already the second cooperative being assisted by PhilRice, next to Rayuray Farmers Agriculture Cooperative in the City of Batac.

The Community Enterprises Development Program (CEDP) is the banner extension program of CBEA that aims to empower the people by sharing its manpower resources, intellectual capabilities, research outputs, and technologies developed along accounting, entrepreneurship, business education, cooperative development, economics, tourism, and hospitality management. The CEDP is geared towards enterprise, cooperative, community and people development through entrepreneurship, good governance, environmental and community tourism-based approaches.

Other projects of the college include the Financial Advisory and Technical Services (FATS) Project by the BS Accountancy program, Economic and Community Development (ECoD) Project of the BS Economics program, Building Unique Identity for Local Developers (BUILD) Project with its components on enterprise development and business incubation by the BS Entrepreneurship program, Promoting Efficient Organization and Local Empowerment (PEOPLE) Project by the BS Business Administration (BSBA) major in Human Resource Management, Marketing Link by the BSBA major in Marketing Management, and Generating Innovations to Nurture Tourism Sites Towards Outstanding Operations and Outcomes (GINTO) Project by the BS Tourism Management and BS Hospitality Management Programs.

In addition to the extension projects of the different degree programs, the College has a special program and a project that include the Public Financial Management Competency Program (PFMCP) and the Community-based Enterprise Application for Sustainable Community Development (OTOTech) Project.

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