Coffee anyone?

DID you know that the Cordillera region is one of the country’s fine producers of coffee being used by foreign coffee inclined businessmen in the international market?

That was how Dr. Virgilio Bautista described the quality of the Cordillera coffee being sold in one of the well known coffee establishments in Japan when he was invited by a business colleague.

Dr. Bautista was proud to know that the 500-750 pesos per cup worth of arabica Coffee came all the way from the province of Benguet. Seemingly, pointing out the great business potentials that the Cordillera has in the coffee production industry.

It is for this reason that I support Benguet's prime state university in its move to help expand the business potential of this industry.

The Benguet State University in its perception of a vibrant economic possibility and employment generation in the field of coffee production for the Cordilleras launched the first "Cordillera Coffee Fiesta" with the hope of creating more avenues for promotion - networking and market matching for the Cordillera grown coffee industry.

Developed by BSU-the Arabica Coffee & Pine Based Agroforestry System seeks to promote the protection of the region's watersheds - while creating livelihood for the highland dwellers.

During the start of the Upland Development Program in 2009 that was supported by the Department of Environment & Natural Resources Cordillera & under the 2011 National Greening Program the planting of coffee seeds was done in close to 548 hectares of appropriate agroforestry areas including sites for reforestation in the region which is also considered as one strategy to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

For its part the Highland Agriculture & Resources Research and Development Consortium or HARRDEC considered Arabica Coffee as one of its priority commodities for Science & Technology Agenda from 2011 to 2016, aside from choosing the Organic Arabica Coffee Green Beans as its promotional product in the 2012 Techno Mart.

BSU added that the Cordillera Coffee Fiesta supports the banner programs of the Cordillera Regional Development Council's Sectoral Committee on Economic Development projects for boosting the coffee industry of the region.

Hopefully, our region would take the step to further enhance its business capabilities in the field of coffee production since coffee business experts predicted a 20 something million shortfall of coffee production in 2020.

And with the Cordillera having an international market, we have eight years more to lay down the programs to propagate the coffee industry of our region.