Picking ‘red’ boosts coffee farmers’ incomes

THERE are 180 million reasons Philippine Coffee Board Inc. (PCBI) conducts training for farmers in Cavite, among other provinces, on how to “pick red” or ripe coffee cherries during the crop’s harvest season, which starts in November and lasts well into January each year.

Estimates show that the value of the coffee that Cavite can produce can go up to P180 million just by picking red cherries and having them washed at the wet mill the PCBI will be setting up.

Imagine P180 million for, say, 1000 farmers. That’s a premium of P180,000 per person bringing 6,000 kilos each to the wet mill that is being set up this month in time for the coming harvest season. Only ripe or “red” cherries will be processed at the wet mill.

“We have trained farmers in Benguet and all the way down to Sulu,” says Nicholas Matti, PCBI chair. This time, he said, PCBI is coming back to where it started, Cavite.

If a farmer picks the fruits while unripe, he has to wait 30 days for it to dry completely and have the right moisture. Picking red and having it processed immediately gives the farmer his money almost instantaneously.

PCBI wants to revive the practice of wet processing so farmers can earn more and would not have to wait for the coffee to dry, which takes 30 days or more given climate change and unpredictable weather.

Group president Chit Juan said via e-mail that PCBI would help set up the mill but this has to be operated by another corporation as it will involve quite a sizeable fund for buying coffee.

“The last time this was done was in the 1970s, when we were exporting Cavite AA coffee to the USA,” she said.

The practice stopped in the 1980s, when coffee prices fell. It is being revived as there is now strong demand for washed Robusta, a specialty coffee.

PCBI will provide the technical know-how while private firms can also engage in buying the red cherries.

Beneficio Amadeo will start the operations of wet milling and others are hoped to follow suit.

“We’ve done it in Sulu, so nothing should stop us in promoting it in nearby Cavite,” Juan said.

Cavite’s 6000 MT of coffee can very well use more value rather than just being a coffee source for soluble coffee or mixed with “no grade” roast and ground coffee. Just imagine, if 100 MT of coffee can fetch a premium of 20 to 30 percent, that would make a difference in the farmers’ lives.

The country produces only 25,000 MT, with Cavite and Sultan Kudarat accounting for 6000 MT each of Robusta.

“Barako and Robusta are plentiful in Cavite,” says PCBI director Alejandro Mojica. “If we just add value, younger farmers may be enticed to go back to coffee farming,” he says.

Cavite had been sharing the Luzon coffee glory with Batangas until the Cavite AA variety made it to the export market and became a world-class “in demand” origin for Robusta and of late, for specialty Kalaboso Barako or Liberica.

But the PCBI knows that Cavite coffee can join the ranks of world class specialty Robustas, just like how Sulu and Negros are doing so lately. Sulu has become the “named origin” for specialty coffee.

PCBI is also tasked to establish Robusta cupping laboratories to improve the quality of Robusta, which accounts for 90 percent of the country’s coffee production. Specialty Robusta coffee graders, called R graders, will also be developed by PCBI to get more value for farmers in the Robusta variety.

PCBI will start in Cavite and it is hoped to expand its reach to other Robusta areas in Luzon.