PCIC aims to educate 3.5M farmers on inter-cropping

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine Cacao Industry Council (PCIC) targets to educate 3.5 million coconut farmers in the country to adapt intercropping practices to boost their income.

PCIC chairperson Valenten Turtur said coconut farmers must learn how to grow cacao trees as well as coffee along with coconut trees as the industry sees the huge potential of cacao in both local and export consumption.

The Philippines has a total of 2 million hectarage of coconut farms, about 3.5 million people are depending on coconut for livelihood. These farmers only earn an average of US$ 1 a day. If cacao will be planted under the coconut trees, a farmer is expected to earn at least P20,000 a month, excluding earnings generated from coffee beans if intercropping is applied.

This move by PCIC is fueled by the pronouncement made by Senator Cynthia Villar, saying she will be pushing for cacao-coconut intercropping to boost income and livelihood of poor farmers across the country.

As chair of the committees on agriculture and food, environment and natural resources, and agrarian reform, Villar vowed to push both high-value crops.

Cacao and coffee are deemed as "very strategic crops" as these could be used for intercropping with coconuts, the senator said.

Unlike coconut, wherein harvest can only be done every two months, harvest of cacao is in every two weeks.

In the past, Turtur admitted that the industry suffered from lack of government attention and support, but with the pending bill of Villar supporting the growth of cacao industry, PCIC is motivated to launch more programs in partnership with stakeholders and other agencies.

According to Villar, cacao planting is part of the P9 billion Greening Program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) that allows cacao farmers to access seedlings from the DENR.

"I recommended to the DENR to allow farmers to plant high-value crops such as cacao and coffee in government-owned forests," said Villar.

According to the Department of Agriculture (DA), the local average annual cacao consumption stood at 50,000 metric tons (MT) while local supply is only around 10,000 MT.

To supply the gap in the global demand, the local industry players should meet DA’s goal of increasing local production to 100,000 metric tons (MT) of dried cacao beans by 2022. This means the country needs to harvest from around 100 million cacao trees. (FREEMAN)