For love of the bean

AMADEO, Cavite – For about P10,000 a year, a coffee lover can now be a coffee farmer. The amount covers the lease of a hectare of land already planted to coffee.

"The farm needs no planting, just maintenance," said Mayor Albert Ambagan, Jr. "Renting a farm is less costly than buying one here where the going property rate is P2,000 per square meter. Besides, there are already existing coffee trees in the farms to be rented out, so the returns would come in about a year or so instead of the usual three years."

"Putting up a coffee farm from scratch would cost about P50,000 per hectare, not including the cost of the property. After spending P20 million for a hectare of farmland, plus expenses, it’s hard to show a profit," said Dr. Andy Mojica of the Cavite State University.

The primary target of this rent-a-farm program are middle-income individuals from nearby Metro Manila who are either on the look-out for profitable ventures or relish the idea of being a gentleman-farmer.

On the average, a one-hectare farm could yield 840 kilograms on the first year and close to a ton per hectare on the second year.

With an average of 1,600 coffee trees planted in one hectare and with each tree yielding about two kilograms of coffee in green beans each year, the lessee can generate P134,000 if the beans are sold at P42 a kilo. This translates to roughly five times the input of P10,000 rent plus the P15,000 per hectare cost of rehabilitating a farm.

Joint project

The rent (or adopt)-a-farm project is a joint project of Figaro Foundation Corp. and the local government of Cavite, which bills itself as the "Coffee Capital of the Philippines."

"Coffee production needs to be stepped up," said Chit Juan, a director of Figaro Foundation’s mother company, Figaro Coffee Co. "The Philippines consumes 55,000 tons of coffee each year but we produce less than 35,000 tons."

The inability of local farmers to supply the market can be partly traced to the drop in coffee prices brought about by overproduction in major coffee-producing countries like Brazil and Indonesia. From P700 a kilo in 1987, coffee currently sells at between P80 and P115 per 6.5-kilogram bucket.

"It has become less profitable for farmers to till than to sell," said Ambagan. "Because the farmers here either do not have the money to pay for the harvesting of their coffee or the maintenance of their farm, many have sold their properties or have left the coffee beans unharvested."

Provincial data showed the 13,000 hectares dedicated to coffee in 1999 dwindled to the current 7,000 hectares, with the corresponding drop in coffee production from 41,000 tons to 35,000 tons in the last three years.

"If we do not do something very soon, we might end up importing 100% of our coffee and we will lose our coffee farms to industrialization," said Ambagan. Even with pro-active cooperation with private sector organizations such as Figaro Foundation, Nestle Phils., which accounts for 92% of the total coffee manufacture, expects imports to stabilize at 15,000 tons by 2005.

Ambagan, however, remains optimistic. On his own initiative, he has put up a cooperative which lends farmers money to buy farm inputs. The cooperative also buys the products of the farmers.

This Valentine’s Day and the two days after, Amadeo farmers and their lessees also intend to celebrate their love for these beans with the holding the Pahimis festival.