October 20, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Nestlé Philippines Inc. is confident of attaining its goal of increasing the yield of local coffee farmers to at least one metric ton per hectare by 2025 as part of its program to improve farmers’ profits and welfare.
Nestlé Philippines corporate affairs head Jose Uy III said the company is on track to hit the goals set under its Project Coffee++, including higher yield and profit for coffee farmers, which is set to end next year.
The project is done by the company in partnership with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ). Under the three-year project, which began last year, some 3,000 farmers would be able to increase their yield and profit by 20 percent by next year.
Farmer-beneficiaries have been producing about 900 kilos per hectare at the end of the previous iteration of the project in 2022. Income-wise, farmers are now earning at least 100,000 per harvest season.
Before the start of Project Coffee++, which began in 2018, farmer-beneficiaries were only producing about 235 kilos per hectare and earning P30,000 per harvest season.
“We are confident of hitting or even surpassing the target. We commit at least one metric ton per hectare and we see it growing beyond,” Uy said.
The project also aims to encourage farmers to implement regenerative agriculture in their farm practices to ensure sustainability of their production.
Regenerative agriculture refers to the use of various practices such as intercropping, cover cropping and composting to rejuvenate soil health and reduce wastage as well as carbon emissions.
The goal is in line with the corporate vision of Nestlé of sourcing at least 20 percent of their green coffee beans from farmers practicing regenerative agriculture and 50 percent by 2030 until it becomes 100 percent by 2050.
“We are going beyond sustainability. We want to replenish the health of the soil as well as reducing water waste and protecting biodiversity,” Uy said.
To meet this goal, the company partnered with the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and GIZ in rolling out an expanded training program for coffee producers aimed at capacitating them to implement regenerative farming practices to reduce their soil degradation and rejuvenate land to ensure sustainable production.
The training module has been incorporated in the ATI’s digital learning platform that farmers can access remotely, making it the 23rd course offered by the attached agency of the Department of Agriculture.
Citing the World Coffee Research, Nestlé government and industry affairs executive Donnel Jun Tiedra said 47 percent of the global coffee supply comes from countries that may lose 60 percent of suitable land by 2050 due to the climate crisis.
This, Tiedra said, makes it more imperative to help farmers change their farming practices toward more climate-resilient coffee production, including regenerative agriculture.
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