Benguet folk develop new art of marketing coffee

(This is a reprint)

By Maurice Malanes Northern Luzon Bureau

Posted date: July 08, 2007

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet--This province's Arabica trees are now heavy with green coffee beans. Growers say these beans will begin to turn red by September and ready to be harvested between October and February. These will later be marketed through a novel method, which has transformed Benguet Arabica trees into "live banks," if not a gold mine. During harvest, more than 200 Benguet coffee growers--all members of a new homegrown corporation--sort out coffee beans according to the age of the coffee trees. "This is because we market our Benguet coffee according to principles," says Rudy Guisdan, marketing officer of the Benguet Organic Coffee Arabica Enterprises Limited Inc. (Bocaeli). The corporation, formed in June 2005, is a cooperative of more than 200 backyard coffee growers who, with the help of local marketing experts, regularly meet to develop ways to market their products. "We have 'coffee of pride' (coffee beans from trees up to 49 years old), 'coffee of privilege' (beans from 50- to 75-year-old trees), and 'coffee of prestige' (75- to 99-year-old trees)," says Guisdan. "The most expensive is our 'coffee of honor,' which comes from 100-year-old or older trees," he adds. The prices vary according to age. A kilogram of ground coffee of pride sells at P300; coffee of privilege, P350; coffee of prestige, P400; and coffee of honor, P450. What's the philosophy or rationale behind the classification of Benguet Arabica coffee according to age? "It's definitely an honor to be sipping coffee from centennial coffee plants, which are the same organically grown plants that have been producing the beverage of our ancestors, and more and more clients are getting to appreciate this," says Guisdan. If coffee trees are 50 to 100 years old and even older but still bearing fruit, this means they have good genetic qualities. "They resist pests and the organic contents of the soil where they are planted have been maintained well," says Valentin Macanes, a Benguet State University (BSU) agroforestry professor helping coffee growers improve their production. Gerry Lab-oyan, president of the New Benguet Chamber of Commerce, a group that also helps promote local Arabica coffee, considers the century-old coffee trees of Benguet "prized heirlooms." These centennial plants, he says, can be the local folk's "live banks" because the plants, which belong to the Typica Arabica variety, are actually rare. Originally from Ethiopia, the Typica Arabica variety was brought to Benguet by Spanish colonizers who forced local folk to plant the coffee species along a trail. Typica Arabica was introduced in Sagada, Mt. Province by noted Cordillera photographer Eduardo Masferre, whose family in Spain maintained orchards. In the 1970s, the Bureau of Plant Industry and a private agricultural firm introduced to the Cordillera other Arabica varieties such as Bourbon Arabica, Moka and Granika, among others. There are 30 different Arabica species but Macanes says the most aromatic is the Typica Arabica, and it also has the lowest caffeine content. The advantage of Benguet and neighboring Mt. Province and Ifugao is their altitude considering that Arabica coffee thrives at 700 to 2,000 meters above sea level. To support Benguet coffee growers, Macanes, with the help of the BSU, has pledged to help establish a germplasm bank for Typica Arabica, especially from century-old mother plants, to ensure the continuous propagation and to help improve the production of this species. Maintaining and sustaining Benguet's decades-old and centennial coffee plants are the main reasons local growers are being encouraged to maintain the backyard coffee industry. A multinational food firm once attempted to contract local farmers for large-scale production. This did not work, however, because big-scale production required wide swaths of land for coffee plantation. "Although introduced, Arabica or what is now popularly called Benguet coffee has become part of local culture and has since been grown along with other backyard crops such as banana and other fruits. It is still best to maintain Benguet coffee this way," says Richard Abellon of the Office of Presidential Affairs in the Cordillera, which is helping local coffee growers in terms of research and promotion. "We do not encourage plantations because people have to deforest a mountain for these and mono-culture farming is not environmentally sound," he says. "We seek to help sustain the biodiversity and cultural integrity of Benguet and other coffee-producing towns in the Cordillera," he adds. Macanes says Costa Rica and Colombia, which are among the world's top coffee producers, rely on backyard producers. "Their only secret is that these small backyard producers are federated into cooperatives or local corporations," he says. To help improve the production of Arabica coffee in Benguet, Abellon's office is seeking to mobilize the expertise of the BSU and the Department of Agriculture to help coffee growers integrate appropriate technology with their "indigenous sociocultural practices" in producing Arabica. The market potential for coffee remains high, says Abellon, noting that coffee beans are still being imported because the country cannot meet local demand. "The production in Benguet and other Cordillera provinces is not even enough to meet the needs of Baguio City where coffee shops are multiplying," he says. The more than 200 members of Bocaeli produce a combined 10,000 kg of ready-to-roast coffee beans each year and their produce is always sold out, Guisdan says. Coffee growers who have maintained and preserved their decades and century-old trees are now appreciating what kind of gold mine they have, he says.