TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and local officials believe that the World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) holds the key to the revival of the moribund coffee industry in this province.
The industry was brought to the brink of extinction by the combination of low production, low prices and most of all, by the rapid conversion of coffee plantations into corn productions areas in recent years.
Presently, two concrete roads leading to traditional coffee-growing localities – the 13 kilometer Banneng-Gombowoy farm to market road (FMR) in Tanudan town worth P130M and the 15.8 kilometer Bulanao-Amlao FMR in this city worth P180M – are being constructed and coffee processing and marketing facilities and equipment are about to be procured to activate the Kalinga Integrated Coffee Processing and Marketing Enterprise (KICPME).
The KICPME was jointly proposed by six coffee-producing cooperatives in the province.
The DA claims that so far, the Patiking Agricultural Cooperative, one of the proponents, has added 11 hectares to its production area since the start of the six-year PRDP in 2013 while Director Bernard Dulyungan of the Dupligan Farmers’ Cooperative, the lead proponent, said that for 2015 alone, members have planted a total of 10 hectares.
Dulyungan informed the media that half of the old coffee lands in the barangays of Pangol, Lay-asan, Mabaca and Dupligan in Tanudan have earlier been converted to corn lands.
At this rate, it will take time before the province could recover its old coffee producing capacity because according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, for just the period from 2005 to 2014, the coffee plantations were reduced from 5,550 hectares to 3,427 hectares.
While Governor Jocel Baac is optimistic that the construction of roads to the coffee growing communities which he said would take a very much longer time when relying on regular government funding could lead to the rehabilitation of local coffee industry, he admits that it will not be overnight because the shade trees have already been cut when the coffee land were converted to corn farms.
Coffee are grown under tree shades in the province.
Baac said that the immediate task therefore is to save the remaining coffee land from being converted into corn land “to save the mountain and the coffee.”
He appealed to WB representatives who came to inspect the ongoing projects in the province during the mission to monitor and supervise PRDP projects in Regions 1, 2, 3 and CAR held here early this week to act on other proposed projects for the province.
Baac particularly mentioned the proposed 10 kilometer Bado Dang-wa Nambukayan for which he said the Tabuk City LGU had already allocated the counterpart.
He told the WB and the DA officials that converting coffee land into cornland is rampant in the three barangays that would be served by the FMR.
Provincial Agriculturist Domingo Bakilan said that another good sign that the local coffee industry is on the way to recovery specifically due to the interest being shown by able farmers and professionals in Tabuk City to go into coffee production explaining that many of them avail of the free coffee seedlings being given out by his office.
Bakilan admitted that the current coffee production is so low that the 12 local coffee processors sometimes run out of material before the next harvest.
DA Regional Director Lorenzo Caranguian alleged that when he visited the barangays that will be served by the Bulanao-Amlao FMR, a lot of residents were asking for coffee seedlings.
Regarding the preference of many farmers in the locality for corn, Caranguian said that farmers should realize that in exchange for the immediate cash, in the long run, they would suffer the environmental backlash of using herbicides.
He added that farmers should be made to understand that in contrast, planting coffee is one way of managing the environment against climate change which is one of the objectives of the PRDP.**By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
