Brewing together

Most of us start our day with a cup of coffee. We reach for a cup whenever we need an extra jolt of energy in the middle of a busy day. Behind every sip are the stories of local farmers whose daily toil in the field provides the perfect beans for our brew. For a farming community in the highlands of Surigao del Sur in Mindanao, coffee is its lifeblood.

MANILA, Philippines — The Mabuhay Kahayagan Coffee Growers Cooperative (MKCGC) is a farming cooperative formed in Brgy. Kahayagan, Tagbina, Surigao del Sur. The municipality of Tagbina itself, with its fertile soil and favorable climate, possesses a rich coffee tradition dating back to the 1960s, being once named the coffee capital of the CARAGA region.

MKCGC is one of the biggest coffee producers in Tagbina, which markets its members’ coffee and provides much-needed inputs to its fellows.

Before the cooperative was formed, each member basically worked on his own and faced his own challenges in farming and maintaining his land.

Realizing the collective advantage of a cooperative, MKCGC was formed in 2009 with 140 farmers. But for these small farmers, running the cooperative was not easy.

Leonardo Evangelista, 59, MKCGC’s current president, shares, “For one, coffee growing in the province primarily faced unpredictable buying prices from the world market. This in turn discouraged small farmers from planting coffee.”

Lack of access to post-harvest technologies, high-quality planting materials and financing also dampened the interest of many farmers. Evangelista notes that poor management in the cooperative also pointed to a need for management skills training among its leaders. 

“The whole province of Surigao del Sur is dominated by small farmers, and when market prices dip or when harsh weather occurrences happen, it’s the small farmers that are first to be affected,” Evangelista points out.

In 2012, however, things gradually improved for MKCGC through the Coffee Technology and Funds to Fuel Economic Empowerment of a Community in Mindanao (Project CoFFEE). Project CoFFEE is a partnership between Nestlé Philippines Inc., Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesell (DEG) and Asia Society for Social Improvement and Sustainable Transformation (ASSIST), which aims to empower coffee farmers in Surigao del Sur by making them self-sufficient and sustainable farmer entrepreneurs.

“Tagbina’s coffee potential suffered in recent years due to dwindling support. We, however, hope to improve the coffee conditions in the municipality by providing them with the necessary end-to-end support – from planting, to harvesting, to marketing of their beans,” Arthur Baria, head of Agricultural Services of Nestlé Philippines, says.

As the primary beneficiary, Project CoFFEE opened many business and skills development opportunities for MKCGC.

For one, members went through a refresher course and hands-on training on the different aspects of coffee production: nursery and plantation establishment, coffee care and maintenance, harvesting and post-harvesting, quality control and marketing, and coffee rejuvenation and rehabilitation.

Members of the cooperative also went through a rigorous 4C – Common Code for the Coffee Community – verification process and training to ensure that the cooperative would comply with responsible and sustainable production, processing and trading of coffee.

Training also included enhancing the business management skills of the board of directors and officers of MKCGC, which builds a clear business mindset for the MKCGC leaders.  

To facilitate trading and to improve the quality of coffee beans being produced by MKCGC, Nestlé does coffee buying operations in Tagbina. The project also helped in the construction and fabrication of a coffee fixed-bed dryer, while the Department of Agriculture provided the coop with a dehuller.

Two years after the project’s initial implementation, MKCGC improved its coffee output from 2.6 metric tons in 2014 to 11.6 MT in 2015. These coffee beans are then either packaged and marketed as their own Tagbina Coffee or sold to Nestlé.

Inocencio Rabe, 55, who has been into coffee for 20 years, remarks: “A lot has really improved in our community since the project (CoFFEE) started. Our family income has significantly increased and our efficiency has really gone up.”

Project CoFFEE also transformed MKCGC into an active agri-entrepreneur group with sustainable business activities.

Among others, the Project helped MKCGC members establish a quarter of a hectare each of a mother plant garden and a nursery, which can produce 200,000 cuttings per year and another 200,000 plantlets per year, respectively. These planting materials are then sold by MKCGC to neighboring coffee towns and interested investors. A mini truck turned over to MKCGC facilitates the transporting of green coffee beans to nearby towns and for the buying operations of the cooperative.

In 2015, MKCGC sold 45,000 pieces of cuttings and 5,000 pieces of plantlets, while in 2016 it sold 42,000 plantlets. The group also generates income from the dehulling services they offer to neighboring communities and through the beans they produce from their demo farm.

The profits earned from these activities go to a cooperative fund and are utilized in its operations.

Baria says that after the successful project roll-out in Tagbina, they’re now looking at replicating it in other communities in Mindanao.

“We’re really looking at scaling up the project, but it will need additional support from other stakeholders. This project, indeed, not only builds a self-sufficient community, but also ensures a more productive local supply chain,” Baria shares.

“Coffee is life for many of us here,” Rabe says. “I don’t know where else we’ll go without coffee.”