THE Department of Science and Technology (DOST) in Western Visayas, through its Community Empowerment through Science and Technology (CEST) Program, and the Association of Negros Producers (ANP) are assisting a coffee processing community in EB Magalona to help them cope with industry challenges.
DOST-Western Visayas, in its Facebook post, said the mountainous Barangay Canlusong in the northern Negros Occidental locality is a community with an ideal place to grow coffee.
With its potential to participate meaningfully in the economy, the regional line agency said the community faces the challenge of strenuous and costly marketing of their products.
“They are producing hundreds of sacks per harvest with a lack of equipment and materials,” it said, adding that aside from that, residents also experience the threat of inevitable natural disasters with its location, and pupils in the established elementary school of the community have limited access to learning materials.
Through its collaboration with the ANP and other groups, the DOST is upbeat that the program will help the community “in bearing against the barriers erected by poverty and deprivation.”
In coordination with the Municipal Government of EB Magalona, the project will cover all five components of the program namely Livelihood and Economic Enterprise Development, Health and Nutrition, Human Resource Development, Environmental Protection and Conservation, and Disaster Risk Reduction Management and Climate Change Adaptation.
DOT-Western Visayas said addressing the major concern regarding the lack of equipment and materials, the program, under its Livelihood and Economic Enterprise Development component, will provide a micro coffee processing and roasting facility to the community's Integrated Social Forestry Farmers Association.
This will help improve the quality of their coffee products and upgrade its packaging and labeling, it said.
Training will also be conducted to the concerned member-beneficiaries of the association with the purpose to enhance their coffee products and be at par with the standards of the local and international market for higher marketability and competitiveness.
Through the program’s Human Resources Development component, the community’s Canlusong Elementary School will be provided with one unit of desktop computer with an installed Science and Technology Academic and Research-based Openly Operated Kiosk Stations (Starbooks) software to advance the students’ knowledge and expand their resources for research and development.
“Designed to be accessed without an internet connection, the Starbooks will encourage young minds to explore more in the field of science and technology, given that the community has no access to a fair to good internet connection and pupils don't even have computers at home,” the DOST said.
Moreover, being situated in the mountainous area of the town, planting materials of other fruit-bearing trees will be provided through donations and in partnership with the Provincial Environment Management Office.
These planting materials will be cultivated around forest fringes as an alternative livelihood to reduce pressure on forest resources.
A forum on disaster risk reduction will also be conducted to increase awareness and preparedness of the community being vulnerable to landslides and other forms of natural or man-made disaster using the RED (Reference for Emergency and Disaster) Handbook.
The program will also conduct a forum regarding food safety with the purpose of raising awareness of the community on the proper food intake thus, minimize malnutrition and health cases, it added.
Association president Arlene Infante, Project Team Leader Sybel Nobleza, and DOST-Negros Occidental Provincial Director Engineer Allan Francis Dara-ug recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement between DOST-Western Visayas and ANP for the implementation of the program.
The project cost is P1.4 million.