Ms. Joan Cua Uy

Joan Cua Uy finished her Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, major in agricultural economics, at Xavier University (Ateneo de Cagayan) in Cagayan de Oro City.

She has been the Consultant of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in its agroenterprise projects in the Philippines since 2005. She assists CRS development partners that include the government, NGOs, faith based organizations, academia, corporate foundations and the business sector, in projects that organize farmers for business, build value chains for their products, and link them to markets.   Before CRS consultancy, she had several consultancies on value chain promotion for the smallholder farmers in the NGOs and the cooperatives.

She has considerable experience working with farmers at the grassroots as Executive Director of Kaanib Foundation in Bukidnon for ten years. She then taught agricultural marketing at the Xavier University College of Agriculture for three years during which time she also established and coordinated a student marketing program for students’ practicum learning in business, and participated in researches of its Institute of Market Analysis. After her work in the university, she devoted five years to develop her family farm specializing in vegetables. She cultivated business networks in her position as Vice President for Marketing of an industry association (NorminVeggies) she is affiliated with as a vegetable producer.

She is instrumental in developing the agroenterprise clustering approach in CRS, bringing together the richness of experience in her involvements in the NGO, cooperative, academe, vegetable industry association, and the business world of buyers and agricultural service providers, and also her own direct experiences in her own farming, in contributing to development ideas and approaches in linking farmers to markets.