Ben Lucas

Ben Luther Lucas, who came from a farming family, started his career by organising students while pursuing a degree of Bachelor of Science in Forestry at De La Salle-Araneta University. After college he decided to get into social development work, among them at a national federation of farmer organisations that is focused on policy advocacy and lobbying for agrarian reform and rural development. During this time he also studied Master in Business Administration (MBA) at Pamantasan Lungsod ng Maynila (now University of Manila). He earned a superior performance award upon completion of Program for Development Managers at Asian Institute of Management at Makati, Metro Manila.

He eventually specialised on livelihood enterprise with Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) as the enterprise development and management advisor of a Cambodian NGO and its farmer-based organisations for 2 years.After Cambodia he returned to the Philippines and became involvedwith Agriterra.

He had been the Project Coordinator for 2 years of the “Philippine Farmers for Food”, a project funded by the EU commission and Agriterra on 2010-2011.In the succeeding 5 years he became the business development consultant of Agriterra funded programs: “Building Agri-based Social Enterprises in the Philippines project”and “Building Full Value-Chain Agri-based Cooperative Enterprises in the Philippines”. He also facilitated and joined several Agriterra advise mission in the Philippines as well as in Cambodia and Myanmar.