| Photo courtesy of DA-7
MANDAUE CITY, Cebu – The Department of Agriculture in Central Visayas (DA-7) led the planting of 1, 000 Robusta plantlets in a stock farm in Ubay town in Bohol province as a means to revitalize the local coffee industry.
In the agency’s press release, Regional Director Salvador Diputado was quoted saying that the coffee industry in Central Visayas and the rest of the country is now declining because of various reasons.
A report from DA and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) shows that the country’s production volume decreases by at least 2.87 percent annually while its production yield is 2.23 percent less.
The Philippine Statistics Authority said that Central Visayas has a total of 1,047,765 coffee plants with an estimated 104MT production in 2015. This contributes 0.3 percent to the country’s total coffee production, the DA press release added.
John Dennis Ranario, DA-7 High-Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP) coordinator, said that their agency procured Robusta plantlets in order to expand the coffee production here.
The agency’s HVCD program offers training and planting materials to selected farmer-beneficiaries.
Coffee farms in the region are located in Tuburan in Cebu province, which is considered as the coffee basket in Central Visayas, and in the neighboring provinces of Bohol and Negros Oriental.
Meanwhile, Diputado said that the Ubay stock farm is part of the high-value crops field that the DA is trying to establish “to make idle lands productive.”
“This activity is in accord with the Plant, Plant, Plant program of Agriculture Secretary William Dar,” he said.