KORONADAL CITY, South Cotabato (PIA) -- Coffee industry stakeholders in the Soccsksargen region, led by the Region 12 Coffee Council, are petitioning the national government to allot a portion of the tariff from coffee importation to boost local production.

During the culmination of the 2024 Kape Dose Coffee Quality Competition organized by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), participants, including coffee farmers and processors, local government and national line agency officials, coffee enthusiasts, and members of the regional coffee council, among others, passed a resolution seeking the use of tariffs from coffee importation to purchase fertilizers that were distributed to coffee farmers in Region 12, the country’s top producer of the said commodity.

Ronan Eugene Garcia, chair of the DTI-supervised Region 12 Coffee Council, stated that the move to distribute fertilizers to coffee growers aims to reverse the decline in coffee production in Soccsksargen, which includes Sultan Kudarat, the country's top coffee-producing province.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority indicated that in 2023, Sultan Kudarat contributed 32.93 percent of the country’s total annual production.

Garcia, however, noted that the coffee yield of farmers in Sultan Kudarat was computed at an average of only 418 kilograms perhectare, whereas for a farmer to gain a return on investment, a farm should yield at least 850 kilograms perhectare.

Citing the results of the profiling study of the Sultan Kudarat coffee industry, Garcia underscored that among the primary reasons for the decreasing production is the inability of farmers to apply fertilizers in farm management.

Without additional nutrients in some form of fertilizer, coffee will remain very low as nutrients are removed from the coffee beans, the report stated.

Garcia told the Philippine Information Agency: “Only 20 percent of the farmers are using fertilizers, and that 20 percent are using an average of only 5.48 bags of fertilizer per hectare.”

“Karamihan ng mga farmers natin, hindi kayang bumili ng abono. Kung may pera man sila na P3,000 para pambili ng isang bag na abono, ibibili na lang niya ito ng bigas,” he said.

[Most of our farmers cannot afford to buy fertilizer. If they had P3,000 to buy a bag of fertilizer, he would just buy rice instead.]

Through the resolution, Soccsksargen will ask for an allocation of 10 bags of fertilizer per hectare for the nearly 27,000 hectares planted to coffee.

“At 10 bags per hectare and an average cost of P3,000 per bag of fertilizer, this should amount to only P780 million, a small amount considering that Nestlè Philippines pays the government P7 billion in tariffs per year,” Garcia said.

The Soccsksargen Region hopes to achieve at least 1 ton per hectare of production out of this initiative.

The proposal is set for deliberation at the next meeting of the Economic Development Committee for consideration by the Regional Development Council. If approved, the resolution will be endorsed to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture. 

Apart from the distribution of fertilizers, the Coffee Council also aims to expand coffee farming in the region in terms of area and yield through convergence and a whole-of-nation approach as laid out in a coffee sector roadmap.

This convergence, Garcia pointed out, will foster a sense of ownership among local governments and national line agencies, thereby consolidating programs, projects, and activities that will advance the region’s coffee industry.

“For example, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’s National Greening Program may be carried out by planting coffee trees in selected areas, while the Department of Labor and Employment’s Tulong Pangkabuhayan Pangkabuhayan sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers may be applied as a cash-for-work program for farmers working in their coffee fields,” he further explained. (DED - PIA Region 12)