BAYANI KITA transcript

at this time of the pandemic it's truly the the fishermen and the farmers very basic needs uh we now say they are the new heroes and true enough at the back of me these are the heroes that we will be talking about [Music] foreign [Music] one challenge that is so clear and obvious in the philippines food value chain is the very thick layer of intermediaries and this is making the producers profit very thin and in consumers price very [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] there is already a study about this that through the use of new technologies we can really optimize their profit because there will be more middlemen digital technology can address this challenge to some extent not perfectly by bringing the producers closer to the consumers and without being dependent on the entire you know thick layer of intermediaries but this change will affect so many people this is not a change just affecting the farmers and the consumers but everybody in the entire system so the systemic approach is needed this app is a vision of allowing us to democratize the whole food supply chain me and some of my good friends in the university of the philippines and popolare was able to coin this word bayani kita and the bayanikita is actually four powerful words in that one word of an app [Music] it's a personal thing whenever you would say bayani kita you're my hero [Music] they always say about bayanikita it's all about farmers it is not it's the full ecosystem it's both farmers and the consumer tayo so it's a collaboration of both stakeholders in this app that's why it's democratizing the whole philippines because all of us are being the stakeholders because we consume all this produce of these farmers and the partners themselves who feeds us will now be able to leverage on this digital platform for it now to be realized and just put it on a marginalized sector where you digitize them can you just imagine the power of the tool of using technology using all these digital platforms for them to be able to participate in a global economy in fact philippines being an agricultural country we can even supply the world and it's a matter of time for us to realize this because digital is everywhere anytime anywhere [Music] you know uh data with the pandemic it just became so clear and so obvious that it's going to be a source of growth of innovation and productivity benefits nyan are those who have access to data so that's why online markets are booming you know for consumers but also producers that kind of benefit is only accessible to those who are who have access to the data super highway and those who are marginalized are of course the one who will be even more marginalized between those who have and those who have not those who are have access to data and those who don't know if that kind of benefit if that kind of information if that kind of facility of access of even the way they can plan their production the way they can even monitor the weather even the simple the farmers were saying [Music] smartphones [Music] foreign me [Music] the onboarding activity is really important to bring the users into the picture this is the initial launch of the system it may not be perfectly addressing all the needs of the farmers so onboarding activity is a great venue for the technology provider to really engage in the direct conversation with the farmers and then listen to their voices understand their needs and wants better so that they can incorporate into the next iteration of the improvement of the system in the future digital agriculture farmers connects department [Music] if we're able to come up with sustainable approaches to our problems now that are very weakened no we need to be able to address it from the macro but also from the micro at union big collaboration and one philippines but it takes leadership it takes leadership not only from the top but leadership from the middle leadership from the from the below you have to have a community of leaders that look at the same vision and you know having the same the same objective of uplifting the poorest among us [Music] it takes a whole village to empower our farmers data is just one of it but the whole network of people from the markets to the consolidators all the way to the agricultural extension workers to the farmer you and a union-concerted effort that we need to also build on top of the data infrastructure that we're building [Music] so for this kind of change to happen all the stakeholders really have to go through the journey of change together by listening to each other the systemic change has to happen by the stakeholders seeing and sensing the system collectively so this initiative like today's onboarding is one of the great opportunity to bring the government and then the farmers and the technology providers to be together although it's not a complete set of the stakeholders but again for the systemic change to happen all the stakeholders must be able to see and sense the system collectively together to accept the change [Music] vietnam [Music] is [Music] is [Music] um [Music] um [Music]