Robyn Mijares (Philippines) won the Woman in Ag Award for teaching children to grow their food.
At just 24, Robyn Mijares has revolutionized agriculture in the Philippines, one school at a time, one student at a time, mobilizing over 98,000 public school students and their families through sustainable farming. Founder and Executive Director of Grow School Philippines, she addresses one of the country’s most dire crises: food insecurity. It’s no surprise that Robyn has won the Women in Ag Award in the category Education. What was a nice surprise, though, was that she was able to make it to Hannover for the Award ceremony! Women in Ag spoke to Robyn Mijares.
In spite of her young age, Robyn Mijares already an impressive collection of awards. She made history as the first Filipino to ever receive the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction‘s WIN Rising Star Award 2024, sharing her story through features in VOGUE Philippines for the International Women’s Month on Raising Hope, as a TEDx speaker, and most recently awarded by the World Food Prize Foundation as a Top Agri-Food Pioneer Laureate 2025, and given a special citation by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) under the renowned Champion Award. All in recognition of her work combining education, innovation, and sustainability. Robyn is fostering a generation of young Filipinos who are not only free from hunger but are equipped and have the capacity to feed others as well.
But this journey began humbly—as just a classroom assignment.
In 2020, amid the pandemic as a 19 year old girl, Robyn saw how hunger became the slowest yet deadliest form of disaster. With a report of 44.7% national food insecurity, marginalized Filipino public school children living below the poverty line were the most affected. It was through that seed that Robyn built Grow School Philippines, the first bamboo farm school located in Nasugbu, Batangas that provides free accessible agricultural and environmental education to public school youth across the country.
Designed to resemble the traditional native Filipino “salakot” farmer’s hat, the 20ft. tall structure is built entirely from 100% sustainable bamboo; and was actually built by local corn farmers trained in green architecture. Here kids tackle hunger, reconnect with nature, learn both traditional and advance innovative farming, as well as become inspired to see a future in agriculture through nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches.
Raising the next generation of not only farmers, but food scientists, agripreneurs, agricultural policymakers, leaders, explorers, ambassadors, and changemakers—a generation in which every child not only has enough to eat, but enough to dream.
