DA, Nestle team up to grow coffee output in Mindanao

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) partnered with Nestlé Philippines Inc. to implement the Mindanao Robusta Coffee Project which aims to raise coffee production by improving farmers’ access to farm inputs, training, and market opportunities.

The memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed last March 1, will primarily benefit Mindanao Robusta coffee farmers who are practicing monocropping and intercropping in coconut areas and other diversified farming systems suitable for coffee production.

Under the MOU, DA, and Nestlé Philippines aim to raise the production of Robusta coffee to 1,000 kilogram per hectare (kg/ha) coffee yield by 2027, specifically in Mindanao where 80 percent of the country’s coffee is produced.

The project has also taken into consideration the market relevance of Robusta, which makes up over 60 percent of all variants grown in the country, based on data from the Philippines Statistics Authority.

Robusta can be used for a wide variety of blends and is best suited for the production of soluble coffee.

DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban said coffee is one of the country’s top five high-value crops which is why it sits high on the national economic agenda and is one of the DA’s urgent priorities for development and support.

“The Mindanao Robusta Coffee Project is a public-private partnership that aims to create a more robust and globally competitive coffee industry through programs that will increase farmers’ volume production and improve the quality of their green coffee beans,” he said.

The cooperation between DA and Nestlé Philippines will have five main components that impact every step of the coffee value chain, namely research, fertilizer support, upskilling of farmers, establishment of coffee centers, as well as logistics and marketing.

On the part of government, the DA’s High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP), Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR), Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service (AMAS), and their regional office counterparts will provide inputs, facilities, capacity building activities, and marketing support, among others.

Nestlé, on the other hand, will provide intensive technical assistance, collaborate with the concerned institutions, help ensure the farmers’ compliance with applicable quality standards, and serve as a ready market of the coffee produced by the local farmers.

“Nestlé is looking forward to working even more closely with DA to enhance smallholder coffee farmers’ livelihoods and quality of life. Through training and technical assistance, we are equipping them with agro-enterprise skills that transform them into agripreneurs; and introducing regenerative agriculture practices to make them more resilient to climate change,” Nestlé Philippines chairman and CEO Kais Marzouki said in a statement.

“We are also looking for ways to innovate our buying process of green coffee beans to help increase our volume purchase of local coffee beans from farmers and cooperatives. The goal is to shift sourcing to 100 percent local coffee beans,” he said.

The collaborative project is in line with the Philippine Coffee Industry Roadmap 2021–2025, which envisions a coffee industry that is cost-competitive, aligned with global quality standards, resilient, sustainable and environment-friendly; and provides continuous benefits to farmers, processors, traders, manufacturers, and exporters.

Under the roadmap, coffee growers are expected to have improved self-sufficiency levels from 15 to 39 percent.

Local coffee production has not been able to meet the rising demand. In 2015, farm yields averaged only 0.30 tons per hectare.

According to the Philippine Coffee Roadmap, coffee production dropped by 16.17 percent from 72,341 tons in 2015 to 60,640 tons in 2020.