MANILA, Philippines — Jollibee is making a deeper bet on where some of its food begins: the farm.
Jollibee Group Foundation (JGF) has joined forces with the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in a new partnership designed to bring agricultural research, technology and more specialized training closer to Filipino smallholder farmers.
But this is more than another corporate social responsibility agreement.
The partnership could help answer one of Philippine agriculture’s persistent problems: how to turn research developed inside universities and institutions into practical technologies farmers can actually use — and eventually turn into higher productivity, stronger farm businesses and more reliable income.
JGF and UPLB have signed a memorandum of understanding covering farmer training, knowledge sharing, technology transfer and capacity building. The agreement combines UPLB’s agricultural research and innovation expertise with JGF’s experience organizing small farmers, developing agro-enterprises and linking agricultural communities with institutional markets.
The farmer may become the technology expert
At the center of the partnership is JGF’s Agri-Tech Facilitators Program, or ATF.
Instead of depending entirely on agricultural specialists periodically visiting rural communities, the program trains farmer leaders and community-based extension workers to become local sources of technical knowledge.
These facilitators learn how to identify agricultural problems, test potential solutions, evaluate technologies and then teach other farmers which techniques are suitable for their specific conditions.
That distinction matters.
A technology that works inside a research facility does not automatically work on every Philippine farm. Soil, water availability, weather, crop varieties, capital and market conditions differ from one community to another.
The ATF model tries to shorten the distance between agricultural science and the people actually planting the crops.
JGF President Gisela Tiongson said the UPLB partnership is intended to give farmers stronger support by combining the capabilities of institutions that bring different expertise to the table.
UPLB Chancellor Jose Camacho Jr., meanwhile, described the collaboration as an opportunity for research, innovation and community engagement to create greater public value while demonstrating what closer cooperation between universities and the private sector can accomplish.
This program already has proof points
The Agri-Tech Facilitators initiative is not starting from zero.
JGF reported in July that the program had trained and certified 18 farmer leaders as community-based agri-tech facilitators.
Those facilitators established or worked on 14 demonstration projects involving technologies such as rain shelters, greenhouse production, drip irrigation, vermicomposting and green manuring.
Through demonstrations, peer-learning activities and community engagements, they subsequently shared technologies with more than 200 other farmers.
One experiment illustrates why the program could matter.
According to Jollibee Group, a rain-shelter project increased marketable cabbage production from just 30 kilograms in an open field to 174 kilograms under protected cultivation in that particular demonstration. The result should not automatically be assumed for every farm, but it demonstrates the potential payoff when appropriate technology is tested under actual farming conditions.
JGF’s 2025 sustainability disclosures also show that the ATF program was launched in 2024 and that its demonstration farms have been used to test solutions to common production challenges, including excessive rainfall, pests, fertilizer expenses and inefficient water use.
UPLB had already played a role before the latest agreement, conducting a formative evaluation of the ATF training program that Jollibee Group says validated improvements in farmers’ leadership, facilitation and technical capabilities.
The new partnership effectively takes that relationship further.
From university research to bell peppers
One of the areas JGF and UPLB are expected to explore is the development and adoption of technologies for crops such as green bell pepper.
That may sound like a narrow agricultural project, but it fits into a much larger commercial system.
JGF’s flagship Farmer Entrepreneurship Program, or FEP, was created in 2008 to organize small farmers into agro-enterprises, improve their technical and business capabilities and connect them with institutional buyers — including the Jollibee Group itself.
Today, JGF says FEP has supported more than 1,800 smallholder farmers across 12 provinces.
Those farmers have collectively supplied more than 20 million kilograms of produce and generated over ₱1 billion in farmer income, according to the Foundation.
The numbers show why Jollibee’s agricultural programs have evolved beyond simple farmer assistance.
They are increasingly about creating functioning value chains.
Farmers need financing, technology, organizational capacity, quality standards and — critically — buyers.
JGF has been attempting to connect those pieces.
Its farmer groups have supplied vegetables used within the Jollibee Group supply chain, while the Foundation has also worked with financial institutions, government agencies, cooperatives and universities to strengthen access to capital and technical assistance.
In 2025, partner farmers supplied about 31% of the Jollibee Group’s vegetable requirements and 42% of its white onions, according to the company’s 20th-anniversary disclosure released in March 2026.
That turns the farmer program into something commercially significant as well as socially significant.
Why this matters beyond Jollibee
Agriculture remains a major source of Filipino employment.
Philippine Statistics Authority data show that agriculture accounted for 20.7% of total employment in December 2025, second only to services among the country’s broad economic sectors.
Yet productivity, climate exposure, access to technology and volatile farm earnings remain persistent challenges.
Even after Philippine agriculture and fisheries production grew 2.6% for the full year 2025, crop production fell 2.5% year on year during the fourth quarter, underscoring how uneven agricultural performance can be.
That is why technology transfer matters.
A greenhouse cannot solve every farmer’s problem. Neither can drip irrigation, improved soil management or access to a corporate buyer.
But combining those tools — technology, training, financing, organization and reliable markets — can potentially change the economics of small-scale farming.
JGF has already experimented with that broader approach. Its partnerships have included government-backed agricultural financing and training programs intended to make capital and business development more accessible to farmer organizations.
The bigger bet: farmers teaching farmers
The most interesting part of the UPLB-Jollibee partnership may ultimately be less about Jollibee and more about who spreads agricultural innovation.
For decades, agricultural extension has often depended on outside experts bringing technical information into farming communities.
The ATF model is trying to create experts from within those communities themselves.
A farmer who successfully tests protected cultivation, more efficient irrigation or soil-management techniques can demonstrate the results to neighboring farmers in language they understand and under conditions they recognize.
That could make agricultural knowledge easier to trust, replicate and sustain after outside trainers leave.
And if UPLB’s research capabilities can strengthen that farmer-to-farmer system, the partnership could have consequences beyond the crops eventually purchased by Jollibee.
The real test will come in the fields: whether better training produces measurable improvements in yields, production costs, climate resilience and farmer income — and whether successful technologies can be scaled across JGF’s growing agricultural network.
Jollibee has already helped build a farmer supply chain that it says has generated more than ₱1 billion in income.
Now, with UPLB entering the picture more deeply, the next question is whether Filipino farmers can become not just suppliers in that chain — but the people who lead its next wave of agricultural innovation.
Leave a Reply