Noel Sugay
De La Salle University Manila
Pia Manalastas
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SIERREZA was founded as a community grocer that supports the Philippines’ local and marginalized farmers. With its founder, Cherrys Abrigo, SIERREZA defies conventional methods of doing business in agriculture by placing its partner communities of indigenous persons and rural communities at its core.
"What he [community's chieftain] wants is for their community to be strong enough, empowered enough, to stand up to the kinds of people and corporations that want to exploit their resources and people."
- Cherrys Abrigo, Founder, SIERREZA
SIERREZA started in 2018 as a community grocer that partners with indigenous peoples and rural farming communities and brings their produce to consumers, bringing both producer and consumer intimately closer together. SIERREZA calls it “Community-Supported Agriculture”.
It accomplishes this by consolidating all other actors in the agricultural value chain and acts as the sole bridge between the producer and consumer. It begins by securing weekly demand for producers throughout its community and consolidates all produce and distributes these throughout Metro Manila and its various pop-up stores.
Through SIERREZA, farmers recognize the demand for their products and consumers are willing to purchase them at fair prices which motivates them to find more ways to farm in a sustainable, eco-friendly, and health-conscious way. While consumers become more familiar with the stories behind their food and establish a deeper connection between farmers and SIERREZA.
“After my corporate life, I quit and volunteered for about 5 or 6 years in various NGOs, disaster relief rescue, and medical missions in remote areas and I personally saw the real needs of the community after spending a lot of time with them. After understanding their culture, their lives, and their environment, it came out that there is a lot more to what they need and to their problems than just simply saying ‘livelihood’. We saw that very few livelihood programs are effective. Why? Because the usual approach of those with programs and projects is they think of a solution that they think will work and they look for communities where they can implement it without even spending time understanding if it will work with the community.”
- Cherrys Abrigo, Founder, SIERREZA
What does SIERREZA mean, you might ask. SIERREZA comes from the Sierra Madre Mountain Range in Luzon. With over 540 kilometers spanning 10 provinces, the Sierra Madre Mountains have the largest tract of rainforest in the country with numerous watersheds for agricultural land. It is also home to many indigenous peoples and remote communities, particularly the Dumagat-Remontado communities inhabiting parts of the Sierra Madre mountain range. The addition of “EZ” in between is the Japanese kanji for people (山) and mountains (人), symbolizing the promise of support that SIERREZA made to these communities. And in line with its commitment to farmers being central to their business, SIERREAZA has chosen its logo to be a farmer in a straw hat carrying freshly harvested fruits and vegetables in a basket over their head bringing food to the community.
SIERREZA was founded by Cherrys Abrigo. During my interview with her, she shared about her courage to venture out of the security offered by a corporate job to pursue her passion for helping and serving marginalized communities. She began her journey by participating in multiple volunteer organizations and NGOs focused on teaching and healthcare, about being deployed deep into rural provinces sometimes with military escorts. Realizing that these are the people she wanted to help, she wanted to be equipped with the right skills to serve these communities which led her to pursue a post-graduate degree in environmental sciences in New Zealand. With her newly acquired skills, she decided to focus on farmers first after noticing that livelihood programs, projects, and relief goods are not designed for long-term sustainability. Relief goods are short-lived and diminish a community’s feelings of self-worth while livelihood programs have historically fallen short of being fit for the community.
"We're proving that it is possible for a profitable business to do a lot of extra things that can benefit our society, their suppliers, their customers, and the community in general and not just focus on profit alone."
- Cherrys Abrigo, Founder, SIERREZA
SIERREZA’s goal is to help marginalized indigenous peoples and rural farming communities and its journey revitalizes hope in the Philippine agricultural sector. Central to SIERREZA’s strategy is a connection, termed community-supported agriculture.
SIERREZA changes the cookie-cutter formula of past livelihood projects and approaches solutions in reverse. By focusing on and establishing links with farmers before thinking of solutions, SIERREZA gives them a unique level of attention and support that is tailored for each community in the forms of education, planning, and production. SIERREZA also takes the initiative with its link as a distributor and through social media. It engages with consumers to secure available produce while also educating consumers on the current state of the agricultural sector and shares the stories of the people behind the food, promoting healthier and more sustainable options.
The effect of establishing this supportive relationship between producer and consumer is a continually growing community with a sense of communal unity where producers and consumers have a higher level of awareness and intimacy over the needs of the other.
"It [our work] gives the whole team a lot of reasons to continue and strive to be better because we can see that there is an impact to the indigenous peoples and customers."
- Cherrys Abrigo, Founder, SIERREZA
SIERREZA has already been recognized by many media and entrepreneur groups and networks like ESME, ANC News, and TEDx. Most recently the organization was the sole Philippine awardee of the 2022 ASEAN Inclusive Business Awards. Through these organizations, SIERREZA continues to spread awareness to consumers and other organizations about the struggles of those in the agricultural sector and proves that unsustainable practices don’t have to be the norm.
In addition to the recognition that SIERREZA receives, SIERREZA’s online presence consists of its Facebook and Instagram. It maintains an especially strong presence on Facebook, constantly posting about its farmers, newly available harvests, healthy living, and new developments in its business. This results in a highly engaged community that continually grows on both ends of the value chain. An increase in consumer awareness translates to higher demand, increasing the interest and support within the community, which attracts more farmers to be part of SIERREZA’s network to take advantage of higher sales volumes and profits.
As SIERREZA continues growing, it has an opportunity to expand to higher volumes of harvests and includes more farmers beyond the Sierra Madre Mountains. Especially with a lot of investors and entrepreneurs expressing interest in expanding SIERREZA to other rural communities beyond Luzon.
"If we are able to help educate them on how to take care of their land better and make it more productive, then it will spill over to the economy and supply. We can really be self-sufficient."
- Cherrys Abrigo, Founder, SIERREZA
SIERREZA is a purpose-driven organization that strives to make a difference. It sees itself as a micro-enterprise that’s focused on community. As they continue to partner with more farmers, growing their community, they can make very positive improvements to the lives of producers and consumers. Many of SIERREZA’s farmers have since shied away from unsafe work as a source of income such as charcoaling and logging which can have serious effects on their health and the environment.
While many consumers have since become more aware of the stories behind their food and play more active roles in supporting our farmers. As is during cases of natural disasters that disrupt farmers’ operations, many of SIERREZA’s consumers step forward to provide support in the form of donations and volunteerism to help the farmers through hard times. Through their community, SIERREZA has been able to mobilize resources to aid farmers that have been impacted by natural disasters. In addition to producers and consumers, SIERREZA also creates jobs and opportunities for upward mobility. It has been known to celebrate the educational accomplishments of its employees on social media.
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Cherrys Abrigo, Founder
SIERREZA supports Filipino indigenous peoples and rural communities by purchasing farmers' harvests at fair prices and distributing them to urban consumers.