BAGUIO CITY (PIA) – The Regional Development Council Sectoral Committee on Economic Development has created a technical working group (TWG) to review and consolidate previous and current initiatives in efforts to address the challenges of the coffee industry in the Cordillera Region.
This initiative is a significant step towards developing the Cordillera coffee industry and enhancing the competitiveness and sustainability of the sector.
This stemmed from the observation of Presidential Assistant for Cordillera Assistant Secretary Antonio Tabora that there is a very high demand of coffee abroad especially Australia, and here in the region, there’s a lot of coffee plantations but production is very limited.
Former Department of Agriculture regional executive director Cameron P. Odsey said the potential of coffee, especially Arabica is very good in the Cordillera.
“We have the best Arabica coffee in the country, it’s in the region. But we need investment to go into farming,” he shared.
He highlighted the challenges coffee farmers face, saying coffee cannot be grown by a poor farmer because of the long wait to become profitable. If a poor farmer has money, why would he still plant coffee and wait for three years, and if he harvests, he will still process it before he sells it to the market. If he has money, he would rather grow vegetables because when he harvests them, he will sell them right away, Odsey explained.
“Those farmers who go into coffee production are those who have other alternative sources of income like retirees, and that’s the reality. Those who invest in coffee are the businessmen,” he added.
Sectoral committee members also shared some initiatives to promote the coffee industry.
Ryan Palunan, Regional Agriculture and Fisheries Council chairperson, said the RAFC has created a coffee committee, and together with DA they will create the Regional Priority Commodity Program for coffee which is derived from the Philippine Rural Development Project, to prepare a regional plan for coffee. The provinces have already their Provincial Commodity Industry Plan for coffee.
Benguet State University president Kenneth Laruan committed to review researches conducted by the Cordillera Consortium for Agriculture, Aquatic and Resources Research and Development regarding coffee and present it to the TWG.
The TWG which will be under the Sub-Committee on Agriculture, is initially composed of the Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, Department of Science and Technology, state universities and colleges, private sector representatives and coffee farmers’ cooperatives (JDP/MAWC-PIA CAR)
