Mindanao stakes claim as coffee powerhouse

ISULAN, Sultan Kudarat—Few Filipino consumers are aware that Mindanao produces more than 70 percent of the country’s annual coffee output of about 98,000 metric tons.

They might not even be aware that this province alone produced more than 19,000 metric tons last year.

Data compiled by the Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) program of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) showed that the island’s main coffee production areas are in Central Mindanao, Davao City and Compostela Valley, as well as in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Coffee is an important global commodity and the Philippines is a coffee-drinking nation, with local demand growing about 3 percent annually, GEM said.

Steep demand

In fact, local production could not cope with the demand that coffee remains one of the country’s import commodities.

“Since 2006, the Philippines has had to import at least 20,000 metric tons of coffee beans annually, mainly from Vietnam and Indonesia,” GEM said.

The US-funded development program said because of this, the coffee industry has the potential for increasing livelihood opportunities for Mindanao’s farmers.

In recognizing the economic potential of coffee, GEM has recently hosted a coffee congress here, which was aimed at boosting the competitiveness of Mindanao’s coffee industry and to strengthen alliances between producers, processors and institutional buyers.

Initiatives

Among the initiatives proposed at the congress were the establishment of additional coffee clonal gardens and nurseries to produce planting materials of good quality and the intensified promotion of good coffee-growing practices to improve productivity, GEM said.

Nestlé Philippines has plans to establish a buying station here, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Central Mindanao said.

“It is not just an access to market, the presence of the buying station would redound to more significant impacts such as proper technology from planting to harvesting as farmers would now be aware of the coffee quality profile,” Nelly Nita Dillera, DTI-Sultan Kudarat provincial director, said.

Last year, Nestlé also said it infused P5.4 billion for new facilities or to boost production in existing ones to raise the level of its coffee business.

More factories

David Findlay, Nestlé Philippines executive vice president and technical director, said of the P5.4 billion the company invested in the country this year, P4.8 billion went to the setting up of its coffee factory in Tanauan, Batangas, while the rest went to capacity upgrading of existing plants in Lipa and Cagayan de Oro City.

This showed that Nestlé continues to be bullish on the potentials of the Philippine market, according to Christopher Sterne, Nestlé executive vice president and business executive manager for coffee.

He said that the Nielsen index alone estimates the coffee market in the Philippines at about P35 billion. This index, Sterne said, has not taken into account yet the contribution of sari-sari stores. Edwin Fernandez and Germelina Lacorte