Students Lifting Filipino Farmers from Poverty

You're never too young to change the world.

In November 2016, my life changed when I joined this startup company, RiceUp Farmers. I was only in my freshman year at BYU–Hawaii when I learned that my friend, Elvin Laceda, wanted to create a mobile app that will increase the profits of Filipino farmers. As an eager freshman, I immediately jumped in! You might be thinking, how can some college freshman kids do something as big as starting a business on helping farmers? It sounds improbable to succeed! None of us had any previous experience in creating a corporation, nay, any professional business experience! So how did we do it?

Making a difference in the world only takes 1 small step at a time. It doesn't come overnight. We started by recruiting like-minded students in our organization. In a diverse university like BYU–Hawaii, it wasn't too hard to do because they were immediately attracted to the idea of empowering those who feed us. With Elvin, who himself was a farmer, at the helm of the ship, we navigated through the rough seas of a startup while our eyes were fixed on the horizon.

Balancing our time as full-time students, part-time employees at Polynesian Cultural Center, and RiceUp leaders, was stretching. In the morning and afternoon, I attended my classes. After that, I walk to work. Luckily, everything was just within walking distance. On a regular weekday night, we spent hours in one of the library rooms discussing how we can help the farmers make the most out of the mobile app. We would be there from 9 pm to 12 midnight. I remember when the library started to close, the library employees would loudly play some random songs, which can be heard throughout the building.

Within our meetings, we realized that there were other barriers that made it difficult for the farmers to use a mobile app to sell their products. They need to have a bank account, a stable internet connection, and financial and computer literacy. Most Filipino farmers only achieved elementary or high school education with an average age of 58 years old! We then learned that the problem is bigger than just making them use an app to make more significant margins. We had to look at the bigger picture to see the root cause of the problem. Due to the farmers' lack of capital, they would always have to get high-interest loans from what we notoriously call the "loan sharks." It was a vicious cycle of getting high-interest loans to get farm inputs and selling crops for a meager price!

Different problems come with different solutions.

As a group of undergraduate students seeking ways to solve a problem bigger than our homework, we came up with different solutions for each issue. One of the first solutions we had was the RiceUp Farm School. It was created to assist our farmers in becoming financial and computer literate. To focus on this initiative, we organized a team to educate our farmers. The education team created modules, then we sent them to our instructors in the Philippines. Up to this day, the RiceUp Farm School has been a success in preparing our farmers to become eligible in getting low-interest loans.

To help the farmers gain more profits, they have to get access to cheaper loans. Our prayers had been answered when we met with Ruel Amparo, the CEO of Cropital. It is a crowdfunding platform that helps finance farmers with low-interest loans. Now with the combination of both the RiceUp Farm School and Cropital, our farmers can take home more of their profits!

Our meeting with the CEO of Cropital. From left to right: Allan Santos, Me (Sean), Elvin Laceda, Ruel Amparo, Mrs. Martinez, & Mr. Martinez

But we didn't stop there! We searched on how we can help them cut costs until we saw a problem as an opportunity. Food waste is one of the growing problems in the world. If we turned food and farm waste into bio-fertilizer, we could help them save 50% from their farming inputs! Well, that's exactly what we did! We started a vermicomposting facility, a small place where the waste went and turned into bio-fertilizer, where farmers can use it freely to make and get their inputs.

More and more opportunities came up to us. One of those is Enactus, a non-profit organization where social innovators compete and showcase their work to the world. We entered a sub-competition for Enactus World Cup 2017 called "1 Race 2 End Waste". More than 50 universities joined the sub-competition. Contestants were narrowed down from the top 12 then down to the top 4. The top 4 teams get to go to London to compete! There we met other university students from other countries, making a difference in the world. Seeing other students like us building businesses for the benefit of mankind was a very inspiring and enlightening experience! It made me think how powerful it is when a group of students gathered together to build a better world. Even though we did not win the sub-competition, it felt like it didn't matter a lot because whether we win or lose, we do this for the farmers! Since 2018, our fate has changed. Our team representing BYU–Hawaii won Enactus US National Championship 3 times in a row, from 2018 to 2020!

Enactus World Cup 2017 in London. From left to right: Joseph Duano, Katherine Christiansen, Princess Astle, James Astle, and me (Sean).

Our efforts bore us bountiful fruits (figuratively and literally speaking)! Our farmers increased their income to 700% since they joined RiceUp Farmers! Our team helped over 72,000 people rise above poverty. Now there are more than 93 farm schools and directly impacted 110,000 people.

Can you imagine that a group of college students were able to do all these things? It may have sounded improbable at first, but it can be done! With one step at a time, we can conquer the world with goodness. There's no effort wasted even though we may think that we failed many times. And even when we fail, it is a learning opportunity to rise up (pun intended) and do it again until we succeed. Remember, you are never too insignificant in this world to make a change. You are never too young to make the world a better place.