26/08/2026
📣 SAVE THE DATE | CEMposium 2026
From the research desk to the farm gate — the ideas that move Philippine agriculture forward rarely come from one place alone. They emerge where the economist's evidence meets the entrepreneur's grit.
Capping CEM's 107th Founding Anniversary — themed "Harnessing the Digital Information Era for Economic Growth, Management Excellence, and Agricultural Resilience" — CEMposium 2026 brings together two leaders who each carry a different half of that equation: one who shapes the policies, and one who lives the practice.
🗓 September 7, 2026 | 2:00 PM
📍 REDREC Auditorium
Meet our resource persons:
🔹 Dr. Roehlano M. Briones — Senior Research Fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), where he shapes national policy on agriculture, food security, rural development, and trade. He has edited six books — one of which, on irrigation policy, won the 2022 NAST Outstanding Book Award — and serves as President of the Philippine Economic Society and Editor-in-Chief of the Philippine Journal of Development. A 2017 UPLB-CEM Outstanding Alumnus for Economics and Public Policy, he earned his PhD from the UP School of Economics and has advised governments and ASEAN bodies across the region.
🔹 Mr. Julius Alfie H. Barcelona — President and CEO of Harbest Agribusiness Corporation and Vice-President of the Philippine Seed Industry Association, with leadership roles spanning the ABCDF (with MAP) and the ECCP's High Value Crops committee. A psychology graduate of Ateneo de Manila with no formal training in agriculture, he built his expertise learning directly from farmers and experts across Shenzhen, Taiwan, Japan, India, Spain, and beyond — and jokes that, since much of his work now involves diagnosing plant pathogens, he became a "doctor of some kind" after all. He is driven by one conviction: that insulating farmers from economic shock is key to alleviating rural poverty, and he pursues that through solutions in seed access, water security, soil health, mechanization, and value-chain efficiency.
Research and enterprise. Policy and practice. One stage.
📝 Register here: https://forms.gle/CzHztCvsW4DpEX8j6
See you there! 💚