A DELICIOUS sip and more, this is what the Coffee for Peace offers by serving coffee to people while helping the people behind the coffee production.
Coffee for Peace which is situated at G/F Fredric Building, MacArthur Highway, Matina in Davao City offers people more than just a cup of coffee either served hot or cold as it has become a tool to help farmers in the highlands to generate profit through using their own land for coffee production.
A glimpse of the history of Coffee for Peace will tell you that the business started as an income generating project for the Peace Builders Community Inc. (PBCI), a non-government organization that advocates peace particularly in Mindanao.
"Coffee for Peace does not want to branch out. We don't want to be like the other coffee shops in the Philippines. Coffee for peace showcases the coffee of the farmers," said Coffee for Peace roasting and logistics manager Daniel Byron Pantoja in an interview with Sun.Star Davao explaining further that while they do not want to branch out, they provide coffee to other entrepreneurs and export some coffees abroad.
"So our dream is to supply coffees [to other entrepreneurs] because the more we could supply and grow that way the more we could buy coffee from farmers," Pantoja explained.
Pantoja narrated that it was on 2006 when his family came here in the Philippines and started the Peace Builders Community Inc. During that time, his parents would go to conflict area and every time they sit down they would drink coffee. The birth or idea of coffee for peace as an income generating project for the organization began from casual sips of coffee during those travels or visitation in the conflicted areas in Mindanao. Though the CFP started in 2006, the actual incorporation began in 2008.
In the beginning, their coffees came from Sulu where they made contacts through the peace network. The source of their coffee first came from there however the contact was lost and eventually the deal died out. As time went on, they found another source and that was when they came across a certain Pastor in General Santos City named Fred who is also into coffee growing and who liked the vision of CFP and their advocacies.
CFP then supported PBCI, which worked in the communities especially among the farmers and 25 percent of the profit was forwarded to the said organization.
The good thing about the business is that the profit they earned will be injected back to the business to help the farmers.
"We want to do whatever we can, that will help them the most even if re-investing all of the project back to buying or back into funding our harvest, we don't use the process to scale up," Pantoja explained.
"It's about moving the bean and getting the farmers to make better quality coffee all the time," Pantoja uttered referring to the main goal of CFP.
Why Coffee?
When asked why they had chosen coffee over any other products, Pantoja explained that it is because coffee crosses all economic, cultural, and age boundary. He also said that based on his research, he found that coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world which is second only to oil.
Also, Asia used to be a tea-drinking country but is now becoming coffee-drinking country, Pantoja said, adding that more people want coffee. Coffee is also a means to connect people from all walks of life. People from the highland, who are producing the coffee beans, will have a place to connect with people from the lowland over a cup of coffee.
More Bitter
Though the help extended by CFP to the farmers is contributing not just on the economic aspect but as well as of the cultural aspect among others, they also faced certain problems in the operation.
"The main challenges in the industry are scaling up and quality control," Pantoja said.
Scaling up their production had become a problem, Pantoja explained, since another company could just buy the land that the farmers owned and then hire all the farmers to work for them which results into the farmers becoming employees in their own land.
"But the [CFP] doesn't want that [to happen because what we want] is that the farmers will do it (the production) for their own land," Pantoja said.
Aside from that, the other challenges they are facing is the quality control, which means getting the farmers to follow certain processes in drying their coffee beans and also man power.
Pantoja also expressed that they also need to guarantee the people through their show and tell approach that they can really earn out of growing coffee trees. The farmers might think that planting coffee trees is pointless if they do not have a buyer.
"If they don't see it, they won't do it," Pantoja said adding that the farmers needed to see that they will earn an income from it.
Also in an article posted in peacebuilders.org which is written by Jonathan Cranston, Coffee for Peace Barista Catherine Moreno Olitao expressed the common things experienced by the farmers where she explained that there are businessmen who prey on farmers and dictate very low prices for their produce and she had also stated the fact that middle class Filipinos prefer the imported coffees over the locally produce coffees.
A Reason to Be Excited
Against all odds, the CFP together with their farmer partners continue to work for their dream of producing good quality coffee.
Pantoja expressed that they are excited over a new plan which they had come up for the business. He said that they are trying to buy a land and make a memorandum of agreement. Now they are going to help the farmers in the area of management, research, and development of the coffee. If before, CFP is only touching the quality control, now they are more hands on, Pantoja said.
Through this new plan, they are going to make clear partnership with the farmers and co-manage the facility. What they are going to earn from the operation will be injected back to the business to help the farmers more.
"So what are we going to focus on is train the farmers to make better process control and better product knowledge, focus effort, ecological processing method, and waste management," Pantoja explained.
Pantoja also remarked that one should be involved with the community so that one can find a way that is sustainable economically, socially, and culturally.