Coffee farming to be intensified under NGP - Paje

Manila, Philippines -  Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje yesterday said planting of coffee, a high-value crop, will be intensified under the government’s National Greening Program (NGP).

Paje said the inclusion of coffee in the NGP is in line with the food security objective of the program.

“Some 86,000 hectares of upland areas will be developed into coffee plantations,” he said.

Of the 86,000 hectares allotted for coffee farming, Paje said 25,000 hectares is in the Cordillera Administrative Region; 12,000 hectares in Region 2; and 10,000 hectares in Region 12.

Regions 3, 4-A (Calabarzon), 4-B (Mimaropa) and 11 have 5,000 hectares each; Regions 5, 7 and 8 have 4,000 hectares each; Regions 9 and 10 have 2,000 hectares each; and Regions 1, 6 and 13 have 1,000 hectares each.

Earlier, some 2,554 hectares had been planted with 1.5 million coffee seedlings under the NGP.

“NGP’s efforts to energize the local coffee industry complements the Department of Agriculture and Department of Agrarian Reform’s strides to enable our local farmers to turn to high-value crops like coffee and eventually remove the need for imported coffee beans, mostly from Indonesia and Vietnam, to meet local demand,” Paje said.

“The NGP is not solely reforestation but is also conceived to boost food production, and coffee is one crop that we know we can be self -sufficient by putting more government inputs to local coffee farming through the National Convergence Initiative,” Paje said.

NCI is said to be a complementary mechanism that combines DENR’s resources and expertise with those of DA and DAR to

achieve sustainable rural growth.