Coffee tours back in Amadeo
Some years ago coffee farmers of Amadeo thought about renting out their farms to city slickers who wanted to try their hand in farming.
The program was called “Adopt a Farm” and this allowed farmers to earn some money to pay their real estate taxes while also earning money as farmhands of the adopter. After all, most of the adopters had no experience in farming but just wanted to help while gaining some farming experience in the process.
This year, Amadeo farmers are again opening their farms to city folk with the “Pick Red” coffee farm tours. For a nominal fee, tourists can pick up a basket and harvest only the red ripe coffee fruits. The farmer then rewards the picker with a souvenir pack of roasted coffee to relive the experience of having picked some of Cavite’s prized coffee known as Cavite AA.
The ripe fruits will then be processed by the farmer – a laborious process which may take a few more weeks until the coffee is dried into what we know as green coffee beans – and finally into roasted coffee.
It’s a win-win situation. The city dweller or tourist gets the “once a year” expe- rience of harvesting coffee while the farmer gets to earn a little money from the fees plus ensuring he gets his coffee at its ripest stage. Not all the fruits turn red at the same time. So instead of the aging farmers having to go back to the same tree every week, the tourists do the work for him while he gives them access to his coffee farm.
This is agri tourism or eco tourism at work. Tourists enjoy and farmers earn some money. The rest of the reward for the farmer comes when the coffee has been processed. “I spend P10,000 a year per hectare to pick the fruits,” a farmer said. So this idea may just be the solution to his woes.
“I’m happy tourists want to visit my farm and pay me too,” he continues. Lately, farmers have had to hire help from nearby provinces – even as far as the Bicol region – just to harvest their coffee. As most farmers are now in their 70s and with children mostly living and working abroad, hiring pickers has been the practice in recent years.
“I am happy about this development,” Mang Oben said. “I will earn and at the same time harvest my coffee at its peak of ripeness.” Unlike in the past when pickers get the red as well as the green unripe ones through strip picking (since the pickers are paid by volume and not by quality), this year’s harvest may be the best crop ever as choosy pickers pick only the red fruits, ensuring top quality from bean to cup.
The idea was broached by the Amadeo Tourism Council and the Philippine Coffee Board Inc. (PCBI) at the recent farmers’ symposium in Amadeo, Cavite. Over 300 farmers from nine coffeegrowing towns attended the event – all of them in their 60s and 70s.
Amadeo tourism officer Jam Medina Tibayan and PCBI director Rene Tongson facilitated the project together with representatives of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry, local officials and the PCBI led by Guillermo Luz and chairman Nicholas Matti.
“I’m happy Amadeo is waking up again to good coffee,” said PCBI president Chit Juan. Juan has also started a small ECHOfarm in the town which has made her one of the new weekend farmers who has invested in coffee and vegetable farming.
Check with the PCBI for the list of coffee farms participating in the Pick Red farm tours. Or go to bit.ly/PickRedTour or to the Facebook account of the Philippine Coffee Board.