Friday, July 06, 2007 Nescafé and Filipino farmers: Four decades of partnership
FOR over 40 years, Nescafé has supported Filipino coffee farmers through various programs that helped them improve their yield and increase their income.
The company believes that helping improve their coffee farming methods and boosting their profits will result in an increase and better supply of coffee in the country.
Coffee is a world-traded commodity, second only to oil in value.
The Philippines’ current demand is at 56,000 metric tons and growing at a minimum of two percent annually. It is expected to go up to 27,000 metric tons this year, a 4,000-metric ton increased from last crop year.
Joel Lumagbas, head of the agricultural services division of Nestle Philippines, reports that harvesting and processing have improved generally with many farmers delivering grade 1 to grade 2 beans.
“It’s not difficult for our farmers to double their yield,” Lumagbas said. “All they have to do is put the right amount of fertilizer to their coffee trees and maintain them properly.”
In 1994, Nescafé established the Nestle Experimental and Demonstration Farm (NEDF) in Tagum City, Davao del Norte where coffee farmers are trained on the proper way of growing coffee. It reinforced the importance of good plantation management and served as a venue for the conduct of experiments and production of planting materials. It has produced a number of brochures to further aid coffee farmers in improving their yield.
The NEDF also functions as a provider of high quality and high-yielding Robusta coffee planting materials to Filipino farmers.
To date, it provides 80 percent of all Robusta cuttings in the Philippines. In the last five years alone, the NEDF has distributed 5,631 kilos of coffee seeds, 235,564 coffee seedlings, and 204,822 rooted cuttings. This has generated an estimated 17,764 direct jobs in the country.
Nescafé currently sources its coffee from around 100,000 Filipino farmers for years. It also deals with about 300,000 other people in the country who are in one way involved in the planting, harvesting, or processing and trading of coffee and provides financial support to the National Coffee Development Board in assistance to its Organic Fertilizer Program. The intention is to raise awareness of locally grown Philippine Coffee.
Nescafé also supports coffee farmers through its buying policy. It commits to purchase all coffee produced in the country at a suitable price based on the prevailing world market price and Nescafé coffee grading system.
