For coffee lovers with green thumbs

That Filipinos are coffee lovers is an understatement. They drink 18 billion cups a year. Ironically, they produce only half of it, importing as much as P940 million more to sate the taste for the brew.

It wasn’t always like that. As far back as 1880 the Philippines was the world’s fourth largest exporter. The bean, introduced 140 years earlier by a Franciscan friar, had made millionaires out of many farmers. Exports peaked in the 1970s. Close to 160,000 hectares were cultivated to coffee by 180,000 families in Davao, Batangas and Cavite. But Brazil, the top exporter, overproduced. Prices crashed worldwide. Filipino coffee planters chopped down the trees and replaced these with fruit-bearers. The income wasn’t as much, but it tided them over.

World demand has since bounced back with population growth. But Filipino planters have been hesitant to return to coffee. They’re missing the bus to the coffee depot. Local consumption has hit 60,000 metric tons a year, but growers can supply only 30,000. Less than 70,000 families now raise coffee on 80,000 hectares, while instant-coffee makers have to buy beans from afar to meet the ever-growing demand.

Cavite, which had 17,000 hectares of coffee land in the ’70s, now has only 8,000. Its annual produce of 18,000 MT thirty years ago has dropped to 5,000. Several thousands of hectares lie idle, 1,500 of it in the town of Amadeo alone.

Amadeo, once called Barrio Gitnang Pulo of adjacent Silang town, used to be a high producer of Arabica coffee, the variety that came to be known locally as kape tagalog. Town officials want to regain Amadeo’s past glory. Nestled atop Cavite’s highlands 60 kms south of Manila and 15 kms from the provincial capital, its sandy loam, ample rainfall and cool climate are best for the bean. About 2,500 hectares. are planted to the fast-growing, quick-drying Robusta variety, in high demand for instant mixes. But landowners lack capital to till the 1,500 remaining idle hectares. Mayor Albert "OJ" Ambagan Jr. is thus calling on coffee lovers outside Cavite to try their hand at Amadeo’s Adopt-a-Coffee-Farm program.

The program is for city mice who’ve always envied the gentle life of country cousins. But coffee growing is not all leisure farming. Not when the harvest suddenly piles in hundreds of thousands of pesos in revenues, tempting the experimenter to grow more, intercrop, or even computerize his plot.

Adoptions started only seven months back by word of mouth. But Amadeo officials have since lent out 170 hectares to 150 "foster" farmers, mostly retirees from Manila, green-thumbed yuppies from fast-urbanizing Bulacan, and some corporate planters and business clubs. The program avoids monopoly, so growers can lease no more than two hectares each from the locals, according to Councilor Rene Tongson, also a director of the newly-formed National Coffee Development Board. But there have been sweet stories of success. Four of the pioneers planted mainly Robusta and the kape barako strains, Liberica and Excelsa. While waiting for seedlings to yield ripe beans in two years, they grew squash, tomato, watermelon, bitter melon and eggplant in between. To their pleasant surprise, they recouped 80 percent of investments in the first four months alone. A fifth planter was bolder, intercropping coffee saplings with peanuts – for even higher gains. He is now revered in Cavite and Makati coffee shops as the best of the lot.

Mayor Ambagan makes adopting as easy as A-B-C. An interested leisure farmer can see him or the municipal agriculturist for a farm tour. He is then matched with a landowner, whom he may hire as farmhand during the five-year lease, extendable for as long as both parties agree. The grower rents the land at P1 per sqm, or P10,000 per hectare, per year. He finances the planting, fertilizing and environment care, which run up to a modest P100,000 per hectare. One hectare can be planted to 1,760 coffee trees. The landowner then uses the rent to pay his real estate tax.

Amadeo may lack the capital, but not the coffee knowhow. The local government provides seedlings, technical assistance, irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides. To make sure they know what they’re talking about, the mayor, councilors and other municipal officers themselves leased idle lands and are now coffee growers. Nearby Cavite State University also backs the foster farmers with research and development of cultivars and pest control. The Coffee Board ensures good farmgate prices by bringing in bulk buyers. The adoption scheme also has technical cooperation with the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, East West Seed Co., Nestlé Philippines Inc., and Figaro Coffee Foundation.

Potential lessors may call Mayor Ambagan at (0917) 928-6658, Councilor Tongson at (0916) 209-6140, or their municipal offices: (046) 413-3010/12. Or e-mail: [email protected], or [email protected].

The adoption program aims to produce at least 10 MT of coffee in Amadeo alone by 2006. But that’s still a far cry from the annual shortfall of beans. Perhaps, the many other towns that used to produce coffee can adopt the adoption scheme.

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Catch Linawin Natin, Mondays at 11 p.m., on IBC-13.

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Aside from presidential candidates, senatorial aspirants must also be encouraged to debate their platforms. Voters need to know who they are and for what they stand, for an informed choice of 12 out of 54 hopefuls. As it is, voters rely only on name recall. This gives an unfair edge to the old trapos (traditional pols) and show biz celebrities. Even to the notorious who’s only out on bail from heinous crime charges.

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