Agriculture.ph Blog

RP eyes to regain world coffee market dominance

The Philippine Coffee Board will begin massive replanting of former coffee plantations with new trees and developing new ones to ensure that the country will regain its dominance of  the world coffee market at the soonest time possible.

To ensure the undisrupted tree planting, the board has also mobilized local government units in various coffee growing areas of the country to spread the word about planting 1,000 hectares to new coffee trees.

The board also declared July 22 as the start of the coffee month, which will be highlighted by a nationwide tree planting with coffee beginning in Bukdinon and then Mendez, in Cavite on July 24 to be followed on July 27 by the Benguet State University in La Trinidad Agro Forestry area and another 500 trees to be planted in Barotac Viejo in Iloilo on July 30.

The PCB entered into a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Agriculture, supervised by High Value Commercial Crops Director Rene Rafael Espino and assisted by HVCC coordinators in 5 areas: North Luzon, South and Central Luzon, Visayas, Northeast Mindanao, and Southwest Mindanao.

We fervently hope that every July our coffee farmers will plant more coffee trees to address the shortfall in local coffee production, states Pacita Juan, PCB Co-Chair. The country  presently imports more than 30,000 metric tons worth P3 billion yearly of coffee from Vietnam and Indonesia and the only way to mitigate the problem is to increase the land area devoted to coffee.

North Luzon and Southwest Mindanao will concentrate on the Arabica variety which grows at over 1000 meters above sea level while the other areas will plant Barako (liberica variety) and Robusta, the country’s biggest variety on demand. Iloilo is a virgin area for coffee, says Nicholas Matti, co chair of the PCB.

“We have a lot of farmers interested to go into coffee production again due to the high demand even just in the domestic market. In the Visayas, the Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental communities have also  awakened to the renewed interest in coffee farming,” he added.

New nurseries are also being established with the assistance of the Philippine Coffee Board in preparation for planting of more trees next year. This activity is aligned with the Board’s plan to reach self-sufficiency in coffee by 2015 through coffee rehabilitation, rejuvenation and new plantings.

Interested parties may email philcoffeeboard@gmail.com.

The Board welcomes new investors and private individuals looking for investments in the robust coffee industry.

Source: www.mb.com.ph