House works on coffee industry measures

The House of Representatives committee on agriculture and food on Thursday created a technical working group to further scrutinize proposed measures seeking to develop and optimize the country’s coffee industry, which produces less than 1 percent of the world’s total production despite its capacity to grow four varieties of the second most traded commodity worldwide next to petroleum. At Thursday’s meeting of the House committee on agriculture and food, headed by Quezon Rep. Wilfrido Mark Enverga, a technical working group for House Bills No. 1796 and 3552 was created with both measures seeking a national development program for the coffee industry. Enverga cited a position paper submitted by the Bureau of Plant Industry which said, “Coffee is the second most consumed beverage after water and the second most traded commodity after petroleum. The Philippines is one of the few countries that can produce the four varieties of commercially viable coffee: Arabica, Robusta, Liberica and Excelsa.”