THE Trade department signed an agreement with Nestlé Philippines, Inc. to help increase coffee bean farmer yields through business development services and training.
The agreement is under the P4.7-billion Rural Agro-Industrial Partnership for Inclusive Development (RAPID Growth) program meant to assist 7,800 coffee, cacao, coconut, and processed fruit and nuts farmers through training, equipment, and infrastructure support.
Funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the entire program will covers seven regions and 21 provinces with high poverty incidence.
The Nestlé partnership will initially cover nine farmers cooperatives with 1,500 farmer households in Sultan Kudarat and Bukidnon, where the company will offer agricultural technical training such as crop maintenance.
Each smallholder farmer will be given a hectare’s equivalent of coffee bean planting materials to scale up production. The cooperatives can also access funding support for production and post-harvest equipment.
“Nestlé would be providing marketing and technical support and of course, other agri-preneur interventions that they do have,” Rapid Director Edwin O. Banquerigo said in an online event on Tuesday.
“All the training that we’re going to do, particularly on the production, we are going to leverage Nestlé’s expertise on coffee production technology,” he said, adding that the company will help them identify the needed equipment for coffee farming.
As part of the RAPID Growth project, the identified areas will be given access to business development interventions, raw materials and technology, investments for production and facilities, and rehabilitation of farm to market road infrastructure.
The project’s goal is to increase farmers’ income by improving their productivity.
“This project helps rural farming communities by providing enabling conditions for the creation of more agro-enterprises,” Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said.
“Even as it improves the productive capacities of farmers, it also ensures the sustainable growth of our micro-SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises).” — Jenina P. Ibañez
