LOGGING in to Facebook or Instagram will oftentimes not fail to show a picture or two of a signature coffee shop cup uploaded by someone, oftentimes a millennial.
In one quick glance, this may seem like a mere showing off in social media, however the Department of Agriculture (DA) and other coffee players have seen that this interest of the millennial for coffee shops trickle down to the local coffee farmers in the country. Though this benefit is being done unconsciously by the millennials, their frequent trips to coffee shops and promoting it to social media had encouraged local farmers to produce more high-quality coffee.
According to Wanay Baluyan, a millennial intern of Coffee for Peace, the coffee now serves as a drink for all generation having been cultivated and loved by the previous generations and is still continued to be patronized by the current generation. Coffee for Peace is a social enterprise that has since helped coffee farmers with trainings on proper agricultural practices especially the coffee farmers in Mt. Apo, Mt. Matutum, Bukidnon, and most recently in Kalinga and Capiz.
Baluyan is originally from Kalinga and is in a 2-year internship with Coffee for Peace and hopes to come back to Kalinga with all her learning to impart with her community of coffee growers.
“The interest over coffee is sustained up until the generation of millennials, I think, because many of the millennials are working in an odd shift like call center agents and health care-related careers. These jobs require them to stay wide awake at night. Second, millennials want to try something different always. So when they come here, some of them really ask where are coffee is from. They want to know the story. Some also post that story in social media. In a way, that helps the farmers be understood and be motivated to produce more coffees,” said Baluyan.
She also stated that with her current internship program with Coffee for Peace, she saw how their millennial customers do not only order coffee to drink but some of them would want to know the science and story behind every cup of brewed coffee they ordered. Curious about how a high-priced coffee is different from other coffees in coffee shops, Baluyan said these young customers wanted to be educated of what they drink.
From where she came from, Baluyan said millennials grew up drinking coffee as it had been a staple beverage in Kalinga to show visitors their hospitality. Having coffee in their day-to-day lives, the people in her community has only recently been conscious of the high-quality coffee that millennials of other cities, such as Davao City have long started to be aware of.
This statement is supported by Agriculture Davao Region High Value Crops Development Program Coordinator Melani Provido saying that the millennials are willing to pay a high price for good coffee.
"We would want that in the future, our millennials, who are actually coffee drinkers, will drink the locally-made coffees in our coffee shops, not only because they are helping our farmers but also because they find it really delicious. The coffees of our local farmers have a story to tell but more than that we want it to be known of its good quality," Provido earlier said.
As the demand for good coffee increases, social enterprises like Coffee for Peace continue to train farmers of good agricultural practices. Since its founding in 2008, it has already trained 600 individual farmers. Recently, they have also started training 300 farmers from Kalinga and Capiz.
According to Baluyan, training for farmers by Coffee for Peace starts with them being made to understand peace and resolution especially those farmers residing in conflicted areas. Their core values are also being enhanced. As for technical training, they are guided with all the processes they need to know from seed-to-cup preparation and management of coffee.
“We train them to strictly practice red cherry picking. That is to assure high quality of coffee beans only,” she said.
In Davao City, coffee shops that are known to patronize and source out their coffee beans from local farmers are Bo’s Coffee, Blugre Coffee, Figaro, and Frog Kaffee. As for the part of Coffee for Peace, Baluyan said they only ask about 20 percent of their yield to be allotted for Coffee for Peace. They are then free to market the 80 percent of their harvest to other buyers.
As people are more aware of high-quality coffee, local coffee farmers in are now able to sell their coffee for P350 per kilo when before they sell it at only P90 to P150.
Baluyan said the government specifically the DA, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Tourism had been working in different projects assisting coffee farmers.
In a data by the Philippine Statistics Authority, the coffee production in Davao Region had decreased by 5.16 percent to 10,839.95 metric tons (MT) in 2017 from 11,429.78 MT in 2016. Though this decrease is a concern to the coffee industry, Baluyan said they would also want to assure quality over quantity as they continue to improve on both.