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Coffee industry gets brewing
When prices for coffee beans in the local market went as low as P20 per kilogram in the late 1990s, farmer Romulo Baybay, 55, thought of selling his one-hectare coffee farm in the village of Halang in this town outside Manila. For three consecutive years, he says, coffee farmers in the town had incurred losses due to the steep costs of farm inputs and reduced selling prices. Baybay says the moribund state of coffee farming forced them to shift to planting fruits and vegetables, which proved to be more financially rewarding. Some, he says, cut their coffee trees and sold them as driftwood for orchid growers or materials for furniture. The problem led to the decline of lands devoted to coffee not only in Amadeo but also in the whole Cavite province, which then ranked second to Davao as the country's top coffee-producing province. Farmers sold their properties to subdivision developers and other commercial buyers.
From more than 16,000 hectares in the 1970s, there are now only 9,500 hectares of lands planted with coffee in the province.
Half of the country's 160,000 hectares of coffee farms were also converted to other purposes. Festival This condition prompted Cavite Governor Ireneo Maliksi to ask the private sector in 2002 to help revive the dying coffee industry in Amadeo.
Maliksi tasked Amadeo town to spearhead the revival of coffee farming as the town is the largest coffee producer in Cavite, with more than 4,500 hectares of coffee farms.
Riding on the festival bandwagon, Amadeo Mayor Albert Ambagan thought of a series of programs that would recoup the farmers' interest in planting coffee. The Pahimis Festival was born. Pahimis, a local term for thanksgiving, is aimed at rekindling not only the interest of coffee farmers in Amadeo but also the rich culture and tradition of coffee farming in the country. It is held to coincide with the town fiesta every third week of February.
"We usually give part of our harvest as pahimis to our neighbors who help us during the harvest season. It is also meant to invite luck in the next cropping season," Ambagan relates. He says they believed that "reviving the culture of coffee farming and our farmers' passion for it" was very critical in reviving the industry. "We want the festival to help not only the farmers in Amadeo but also in the whole Philippines, which used to be a top coffee exporter in the 1970s," he said. This year's Pahimis attracted more than 5,000 visitors from all over the country.
For five years now, the festival has greatly influenced the increase in the selling price of coffee in the country. From P20 a kilo in 2002, the average trading price is now P68. The event has helped boost coffee production in Cavite from 500 tons in 2003 to 950 tons last year. Ambagan says the festival has also successfully brought together farmers, capitalists and business firms in a joint effort to save the coffee industry. And it has prompted farmers to develop new planting techniques.
The event also proved to be helpful in pushing the academic community and government agencies to find ways to help farmers increase their yield. Moreover, the festival prompted President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to create the Presidential Task Force on Coffee Rehabilitation during her speech at the first Pahimis in February 2002. This eventually gave birth to the National Coffee Development Board, a multi-sector group that oversees initiatives in the revival of coffee farming in the country, which covers 22 other growing provinces.
Pacita Juan, owner of Figaro coffee shop, says she had witnessed the festival's effect on coffee farming in Amadeo.
"It's very heartening to see that farmers are now going back to their farms," San Juan says. "They now see a vibrant market. They see alternative markets, like specialty coffee shops."
San Juan says the mushrooming coffee shop chains from other countries do not pose a threat to local growers. She says these should instead push farmers to better the quality of their produce and inspire them to outdo the quality of imported coffee beans.
She says the Philippines consumes about 6,000 tons of coffee annually, but it only produces half of the consumption. The country spends about P200 million to import the remaining half.
Figaro has set up two model farms in Amadeo as support to the local government's "adopt a farm" program. A two-hectare farm was meant to inspire farmers to plant "Kapeng Barako" or Liberica, which sells at P80 a kilo.
Most of the farms here are planted with Robusta. Another three-hectare pilot farm is devoted to organic coffee farming, which, San Juan says, has a very bright future.
San Juan said there is a great demand for organic coffee in Europe.
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