Perk up coffee

75% of coffee farms in region needs rejuvenation

AGRICULTURE undersecretary Evelyn G. Laviña said 75 percent of the existing coffee farms in Davao Region needs rejuvenation.

In her speech on Wednesday, October 12 during the opening of the 9th National Coffee Summit at the SMX Convention Center at SMx Lanang Premier, this city, she said, this is the first step to achieving the target of coffee industry players to revive the industry in the country, which she described, was the top coffee producer and exporter in Asia during 1800s.

Some of the issues and concerns confronting the industry are the need to rejuvenate old trees amid farmers’ hesitance to do so, low adoption of “Pick Red” campaign, poor quality beans, low adoption of technology, low production and accessibility to markets.

According to the regional office of the Department of Agriculture data, some of the interventions undertaken by the government are the development of 2,100 hectares coffee farms in convergence areas from 2009 to 2015, provision of small processing equipment and the massive package of technology trainings on coffee production in collaboration with Nestle Philippines.

In 2015, Davao Region’s contribution to the annual coffee production is at 11,860 metric tons (MT) from the 17,344 hectares of coffee farms.

“Let us continue to ex-

explore innovations towards challenges that confront the industry, let us aim to raise our capacity to supply more of our local demand and import,” Lavina said.

She said promoting unique heirloom and homegrown coffee brands, facilitating farmers success to financing, reducing logistics and processing costs in increasing value adding in raising coffee standards , improving research, technology and market in the industry are effective ways of empowering the industry. ASP (For full story visit www. sunstar.com.ph/davao/)