Coffee firm conducts tour of Barako's future

By Mei Magsino
Inquirer News Service

TAGAYTAY CITY-More Filipinos are heeding the urgent call to save the barako coffee as evidenced by the huge turnout during the recent coffee farm visit organized by the Figaro Foundation.

More than a hundred coffee lovers responded to the foundation's call to revive the dying barako coffee strain that is the pride and joy of the local coffee growing industry.

The tour, which started at 8 a.m. in this city, went to the Mendez farm in Barangay Palocpoc of Mendez town to show the traditional processing methods for coffee.

This was followed by a tour of the barako pilot farm in Barangay Dagatan, at the coffee town of Amadeo.

The group then went to Nicky Matti's horse farm amid 6 hectares of coffee creek farm in Silang, and apiculturist Joel Magsaysay's Ilogmaria honeybee farm surrounded by seven hectares of coffee farms, also in Silang.

The tour, which was done in the middle of the worsening crisis of the dying coffee industry, was intended to make people aware of the present situation of the industry that used to be a source of pride for the Philippines.

"This is our way of telling the people that there is hope for the coffee industry," Figaro Foundation director Chit Juan said.

"This tour is also an educational tour to the city people who thought that coffee comes from the mug," he added.

From tree to coffee mug

At the Mendez farm, town agriculturist Myrna Rodring showed the participants the traditional way of processing coffee.

From the trees, the ripe red and green beans are picked by hand and dried under the heat of the sun.

The dried beans are then tested if ready for hulling. A dried coffee bean is ready for hulling when it produces a ticking sound if shaken. Hulling is the process of peeling the beans.

Traditional method of hulling uses a lusong (big, wooden mortar and pestle) where the beans are carefully pounded and peeled.

A gikin, which is round screen made of banana leaves, is placed on top of the lusong to keep the beans inside while being pounded.

The hulled beans are then placed in a bilao used for tahip, or the process of separating the hull from the beans.

The beans are then roasted in a cast-iron wok over low wood fire. When roasted to brown color, the beans are washed and then roasted again.

Only then can the beans be ready for grinding and sifting.

After the sifting, the powdered coffee can be brewed in a pot with boiling water.

The laborious process before the coffee can be poured into the waiting coffee mugs takes two hours and is drank in less than five minutes.

"In the old times, we used to brew coffee with gin," Rodring said, "that's like the Irish coffee."

Coffee trees hold water table

According to Dr. Alejandro Mojica, chief and technology adviser of the National Coffee Development Board, Cavite's nine upland towns used to be planted with coffee.

"About 80 percent of the residents of the nine upland towns of Silang, Maragondon, Magallanes, Tagaytay City, Alfonso, General Aguinaldo, Indang, Amadeo, and Mendez used to be planted with coffee. In fact, the coffee trees held the water table of those towns," Mojica said, "and the big houses of the rich coffee traders were built by the coffee industry. Coffee used to be a way of life here."

But trade liberalization and the influx of imported coffee beans from Vietnam and Brazil, which lowered the price of the coffee beans, forced the coffee farmers to stop growing coffee.

Out of the nine towns where coffee trees used to abound, only seven hectares remain planted with coffee trees.

"Our biggest competitor even in the local market is Vietnam coffee," Mojica said, "Vietnam used to produce only 50,000 to 70,000 metric tons of coffee four years ago. But now, it produces 9 million metric tons of coffee beans. That's because the coffee planters there are supported by the government. And we are left so very far behind."

At the coffee creek farms, farm-owner Nicky Matti said they used to harvest about 2,000 cans of coffee beans in the 6-hectare coffee plantation. But now, they could harvest only 200 cans. A can contain 10 kilograms of coffee beans.

"With the low price of coffee now compared with the high price of maintaining the coffee farm, the planters think it's not worth raising coffee anymore," Matti said, "the coffee planters need government support."

Reviving the industry

According to Mojica, the National Coffee Board, which is now on the race to revive the coffee industry, has provided a 300-million-peso budget from Quedancor that the coffee farmers could loan through the Land Bank of the Philippines.

The coffee board's target, according to Mojica, is to plant coffee trees in 22,000 hectares of farmlands in the 22 provinces that the board has identified as ideal for coffee growing.

In Cavite alone, about 700 hectares of farmlands have been planted with coffee since last year, 1,400 hectares in Sultan Kudarat, and 80 hectares in Bataan.

"Unlike other government programs that didn't continue when the administration changed, ours will prevail as we are also supported by the Cavite State University," Mojica said, "And we really encourage our farmers to plant, replant, and rejuvenate coffee."

"Even our governor has his own coffee farm and he encourages our farmers to revive the coffee industry," Mojica said, "Here in Cavite, the governor can't and will never tell our farmers that he drinks tea or that the coffee industry is dead. That will demoralize them and will jeopardize our programs. The truth is, we all drink coffee and we are optimistic that we can revive the coffee industry. And that's what we are doing now."

Grassroots cooperation

At the barako pilot farm in Amadeo town, the local people maintain the farm that was donated by the mayor's family to the movement to save the barako.

The Cafe Amedo Development Cooperative sells different coffee varieties and blends from the town's coffee farms.

Here, 2 pesos from every kilo of coffee sold goes to the municipal program to revive the barako coffee and 5 pesos goes to the seller.

Coffee prices here range from 180 pesos to 220 pesos depending on the blend and packaging of the coffee.

"In our Pahimis or thanksgiving festival, coffee takes the center stage," Amadeo mayor Albert Ambagan Jr. said. "That's how we value our coffee here."

According to Ambagan, a town ordinance is now being implemented penalizing the landowners whose lands remain idle.

The municipal government suggests that idle lands should be planted with coffee.

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2003/feb/06-04.htm