Govt to resurrect PHL coffee industry

To help the Philippines regain its stronghold on global coffee production, the government has bared plans to build at least 21 coffee processing centers all over the country. “Coffee was once one of the top crops being grown by farmers, but now there is revived interest in growing coffee because of its high demand abroad," said Ricardo Cachuela, executive director of the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization. The El Niño phenomenon, an abnormal weather pattern that brought a prolonged drought to the country in 2009, destroyed coffee crops in the Philippines and thus brought down the country’s coffee industry. Against the backdrop of low coffee yield, data show that coffee consumption in the Philippines has been growing by at least 3 percent a year “We do not have enough coffee in the country today. We need to import, which is another reason why prices are up," Philippine Coffee Board co-chair Nick Matti told GMA News in an interview early this month. Cachuela said the government will put up 13 of 21 coffee processing centers in the Cordillera Autonomous Region, a hub for organic coffee production. The government meanwhile will build four of these in Cagayan Valley, two in the Caraga region, and one each for Region 4-A and Eastern Visayas. “The location of each coffee processing center was carefully studied to make sure that these are strategically located in areas where coffee farming is a major activity, and where there are more farmers and businessmen taking up coffee farming," Cachuela explained. With construction efforts expected to run until 2016, each coffee processing center will cost around P4.9 million, or a total of about P102.9 million for the nationwide endeavor. Each facility will produce ground coffee of different blends, and can process 60 kgs of coffee per hour at an efficiency rate of 80 percent, or 480 kg of ground coffee for each eight-hour shift. The process involves milling, cleaning, sorting, grading, hot air batch drying, and hot air convection roasting, grinding and blending-mixing. The Philippines was among the top coffee-exporting countries in the 1960s, but later lost this standing was it was unable to cope with international demand. - With Paterno Esmaquel II/VS, GMA News