Ifugao aims to be top coffee producer in two years

BY JOJO DE GUZMAN

LAGAWE, Ifugao — Local officials envision the province to be one of the country’s top producers of quality coffee beans by year 2009, as Cordillera region topped the list of regions in North Central Luzon (NCL) in terms of coffee production.

Among the coffee-growing regions in the North Central Luzon cluster, Cordi has the widest production area, comprising 60.58 percent of the NCL cluster.

Last year, the region produced 5,622 metric tons of raw coffee from the more than four million coffee trees grown here. More than 7,700 hectares is devoted to coffee production area in the region.
The NCL cluster is the third producing coffee cluster in the Philippines. It contributes 11.49 percent to the country’s total coffee production area of 131,206 hectares.
Next to Cordilleras is the Cagayan Valley, which produced 155 metric tons from the 2,258,568 coffee bearing trees.

Catherine Buenaventura of Ifugao Agricultural Office said this is one of the medium term visions of the provincial government to boost its economy. "We envision the province to be the largest coffee brewer/processors in the country," said Buenaventura.

She added the revival of the coffee industry was initiated after a lull since the first Ifugao Coffee Congress was held in 1999. The provincial government, through the provincial agriculturist’s office, will provide adequate policy and linkage support to various producer groups and in institutionalizing a well-oriented system of support.
Buenaventura added the local agriculture offices would maintain municipal and provincial nurseries and be the center for assistance and promotion of coffee farming. Various assistance in the form of advocacy and information education campaign providing coffee post-harvest facilities program would also be taken cared of by their office.
She also disclosed that major activities of the agriculturist’s office in connection to this program include the distribution and planting of Arabica coffee seedlings to interested farmers, establishment of model coffee-based sustainable farming in every municipality and propagation of Arabica for higher elevations and Liberica and Robusta seedlings for lower elevations in nurseries province-wide in cooperation with the municipal government with increased targets for the next two years and rejuvenation of existing old coffee trees.

Buenaventura said their office is promoting Arabica in upland Ifugao because of the following reasons: it thrives well in high elevation like Ifugao, its aroma becomes more fragrant when produced in cooler places, it is already tested that it can thrive in the province and it commands the highest price of coffee in the market.

Among the coffee varieties grown in the region are the Arabica and Robusta, which command higher price in the market.
Coffee is one of the top 10 commodities exported by the country to Japan, the USA, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea, among others.

The commodity is said to be next to oil in terms of trading value. The Benguet Arabica coffee alone is bought at P85 to P90 per kilo. A farmer could derive a net income of P60,000 from one hectare of coffee production.