For the aeta tribe in Barotac Viejo town DAR-Iloilo to develop, promote alamid coffee

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)-Iloilo is planning to develop and promote alamid coffee, made from the poop of civet cats (locally known as miro), which are very abundant in the mountain settlement of the Aeta tribe at sitio Nagpana in Brgy. Lipata of Barotac Viejo town in Iloilo.

Hernan Buenavintura, investment and marketing officer of the DAR-Iloilo’s Beneficiaries Development and Coordination Division, said a proposal for this project was already submitted to the DAR Central Office for the putting up of a P1-million worth of processing center in the area or within the town.

Sitio Nagpana, 12 kilometers away from the town’s Poblacion, covers 938 hectares of forest land where 200 hectares is identified as “reserved area” for its watershed and 40 hectares intended for housing and its school. The place is the settlement of at least a thousand Aetas, or indigenous people (IPs) in their shanties since the 1950s.

Buenavintura said almost of the IPs living at the area have been beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), for whom the DAR has been tasked to monitor, train and provide livelihood program to sustain their daily needs.

“That is why we are encouraging them to plant more native coffee and discourage them from eating miro so that more of these will produce alamid coffee,” he said.

If plans will push through, Buenavintura said that the Aetas could harvest more than 10 tons of coffee from their backyard every year.

“If we could produce alamid coffee alamid here just like what Davao City did, this processed coffee could be bought from P8,000 to P12,000 per kilo. This could be a big help to our IPs,” he added. —(FREEMAN)