The Cordillera cloud forest in my coffee cup
TABUK City, Kalinga – (Conclusion of a 2part series article) – In our previous ar ticle, we highlighted Ms. Michele Vargas’ observation on coffee grown under the shade having greater aroma than those grown under the sun.
Ms. Vargas is a staff of the Golden Berries Hotel. She is also procurer of green coffee beans that are processed by the hotel and sold under the brand name, “Kalinga Blend.”
Reacting to Ms. Vargas observation, former Benguet State University (BSU) Professor, Dr. Macario Cadatal, suggested: “many researchable areas on the effect of location relative to land elevation, kind of soil, climatic conditions of the area, within the growing area like under trees of different species…”
He added an observation of his own, “… I think the greatest effect of coffee growing is the preservation of the forest (specifically speaking of my tribe where "kaingin" is our way of life… there should be no more "slash and burn"("kaingin") type of agriculture because of the presence of coffee trees under the forest. Not only trees are conserved but also other forest species (plants and animals) and soil.
He agreed that coffee growing is good for the Cordillera.
Indeed, there are many reasons why coffee grown under the shade is best suited to the Cordillera, being the watershed cradle of Northern Luzon.
And yes, Ms. Vargas is not alone in asserting that “Watershed Coffee” has great flavor. Proponents of expensive gourmet coffee, particularly “Organic, Bird Friendly, and Fair Trade” coffee around the globe say that "coffee grown in the shade takes long to ripen and are often thought to taste better because the long ripening times contribute to complex flavors."
Studies conducted abroad reveal that “growing coffee under the shade discourages weed growth, may reduce pathogen infection, protect the crop from wind and rain, and helps to increase numbers of pollinators which results in better fruit set.”
In the Cordillera, we are clearing our forest for a myriad of uses. Not all mountain spaces should be utilized for housing, industrial uses, and monoculture farming. Our watersheds and some of our forest must be preserved.
Shade grown coffee brings us back to the nature of coffee before it became a highly traded cup of dark, bitter but heavenly morning experience. That benefit need not clear-cut rainforests, pollute the groundwater and cause significant reductions in biodiversity.
In the Cordillera, some indigenous farming like the “Imong” in upper Kalinga had the Coffea plant grow as a crop that existed in harmony with its environment.
That kind of coffee must be traded too as "green" with a distinct labeling as “Cordillera Watershed Coffee,” a product that is not a monoculture and “cash-greedy” (commonplace in modern agriculture) but is a livelihood output that is environmentally responsible.
“Cordillera Watershed Coffee” would immediately bring images of rustic coffee farms compared to sun-grown monocrops and the nasty effects commonplace in modern agriculture to include weedicides and chemical fertilizers.
Under rustic coffee farms, all of the trees and diverse plants growing along with the coffee curement.
The cloud infrastructure with enhanced global security and compliance to standards is provisioned for open use and it may be owned, managed and operated by a business, academic or government organization or some combination of them.
It may be owned, managed and operated by one or more of the agencies in the community, a third party or some combination of them and it may exist on or off premises. The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability.
This Government Cloud or #GovCloud is a public service cloud infrastructure provisioned by the DICT for use by government agencies as a hybrid deployment on-premise resource that is controlled by DICT and accredited Cloud Service Providers.
All government agencies shall therefore adopt cloud computing as the preferred ICT deployment strategy for their own administrative use and delivery of government online services, except when an alternative ICT deployment strategy meets special requirements of a government agency.
According to DICT, Cloud computing enables more effective collaboration as agencies are able to easily share resources across institutions, allowing for greater efficiency, entrepreneurship and creativity in delivering public online services.
With centralized data storage, management and backups, data retrieval and business recovery during times of crisis become faster, easier and more cost effective. Well, this is development is definitely beneficial to all government offices especially in the Cordillera where geography and mountainous terrain often delays communication services.