BAGUIO CITY – Local coffee industry stakeholders have projected bright prospects of the country’s coffee industry once all the appropriate interventions and strategies shall have been put in place by the private sector.
Dave Santos, chairman of the Commercial Crops Committee of the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries (PCAF), asserted the need to rehabilitate the existing total production area of 117,454 hectares to be able to add up to the volume of production by at least 3 percent or an additional 35,235 tons to the existing over 74,000 tons of coffee beans.
He added both the government and the private sector must be able to expand the existing production areas by 50,924 hectares to be able to significantly increase the volume of coffee beans for the benefit of the growth of the industry.
He added the expansion of production areas should be coupled with the improvement of the quality of planting materials as well as the availability of the said materials to encourage coffee farmers to embrace coffee production as the major source of their income.
According to him, the agriculture department must start accrediting plant nurseries and certification of seed or clonal gardens and seedlings.
In the country, he revealed production and volume are decreasing by 3.51 percent annually and 2.53 percent per year, respectively, over the last ten years.
Further, the production areas are decrasing by 1.02 percent per year over the last ten years.
From 2006 to 2015, Hhe admitted the total production volume has been decrasing by an acerage of 3.9 per year with Arabic dropping by 1.68 percent, Excelsa, 6.4 percent, Liberica – 4.41 percent and Robusta – 4.25 percent.
From 2009 to 2013, the volume of production of coffee and area harvested in the country had been also decrasing.
The identified coffee producing areas include SOCCSARGEN accounting for 36.74 percent of the country’s production followed by Davao Region – 15.76 percent, ARMM – 13.44 percent, Northern Mindanao – 6.78 percent and the Cordillera Region – 6.95 percent.
On the other hand, the maor coffee producing provinces are Sultan Kidarat accounting for 30 percent of the coffee production, Davao del Sur – 6.7 percent, Sulu – 6.4 percent, Bukidnon – 5.6 percent and Cavite – 4.7 percent.
From 2014 to 2015, the overall coffee production of all exporting countreis increased by 0.7 percet with the Philippines having an increase of 3.5 percent in production.
Santos added there was a 2 percent increase in total global coffee consumption from 2014 to 2015 with the Philippines registering an 8.8 percent increase in total consumption for the said period.
Coffee industry stakeholders were in the city for the conduct of the 2nd National Coffee Conference which seeks to establish an industry that is cost-competitve, aligned with global quality standards, reliable and environment-friendly; and provides sustainable benefits to farmers, processors, traders and exporters.
By HENT
