Published : Wednesday, July 04, 2012 00:00 [ manilatimes.net ]
Written by : JAMES KONSTANTIN GALVEZ
The Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR) has identified some 86,000 hectares of upland areas
that can be developed into coffee plantations under the National Greening
Program (NGP).
In a statement, Environment Secretary
Ramon Paje said that the inclusion of coffee, along with other high-value
crops, in the NGP will help boost the government’s effort to attain food
security.
“NGP is not solely reforestation but
it 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 [NCI],” Paje said.
Of the total 86,000hectares, around
25,000 hectares are located in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR);
12,000 hectares in Region 2 (Cagayan Valley) and 10,000 hectares in Region 12
(Soccskargen).
Last year, Paje said that some 2,554
hectares have been planted with 1.5 million coffee seedlings under the NGP.
NCI is a complementary mechanism that
combines DENR’s resources and expertise with those of the departments of
Agriculture (DA), and Agrarian Reform (DAR) to achieve sustainable rural
growth.
“NGP’s efforts to energize the local
coffee industry complements DA and DAR’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.
He expressed optimism that the areas
identified will have a substantial input to the government’s effort to replace
its coffee importation which, in 2010, stood at 26,600 metric tons based on
data from the Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp., an
agency under the DA.
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