LA TRINIDAD, Philippines — A Canadian coffee company, in partnership with a leading cooperative and a prestigious state-run higher education institution, has set up a multi-million coffee mill in this vegetable-producing province in order to produce export quality coffee beans which will serve as one of the sources of livelihood of thousands of farmers engaged in the booming coffee industry.

Putting up the modern coffee mill was realized through the partnership of the Rocky Mountain Cafe, the National Confederation of Cooperatives (NATCCO) and the Benguet State University which entered into a tripartite agreement to boost Arabica coffee production not only in the province but also in the Cordillera.

The coffee mill, located in the BSU’s pilot farm in Bektey, Longlong here was developed for the benefit of the RMC Benguet Arabica Coffee Growers Cooperative as a result of the partnership.

It will be all systems go for the modern and ecological Arabica coffee processing center when it was inaugurated recently. The inauguration will include an opening ceremony and a demonstration of the capacity of the coffee mill to process export quality Arabica coffee for BSU Board Members, NATCCO representatives, and Benguet coffee farmers.

The goal of the partnership is to help farming communities in Benguet raise the quality of their Arabica beans through the use of efficient, modern, and eco-friendly wet coffee processing technology such as an ecological pulper, ecological wet mill, and an ecological coffee dryer with no air emission.

The processing center will contribute to the upgrading of the quality of Arabica beans in Benguet to meet the stringent standards of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Higher quality Arabica is bought at a higher price, resulting in additional income for the Benguet coffee farmers, who have traditionally been subjected to the manipulations of middlemen or traders.

The use of the mill will also offer the farmers, many of whom are elderly, an option of doing away with the burdensome task of manually pulping the cherries and pounding the beans, time-consuming processing activities that are also likely to produce a high percentage of bean defects.

The Bektey Processing Center is the first showcase of the result of the partnership between a leading private coffee company (Rocky Mountain Café), a leading cooperative (NATCCO), and a leading state university (Benguet State University).

This modern Arabica processing center will provide benefits to coffee famers, improve the conditions of farming communities, and rehabilitate the Philippine coffee industry, starting in Benguet Province.

That will help bring back the vibrance of the lucrative coffee industry in order to regain the status of the Philippines as a primary source of quality coffee beans.

The Cordillera, including Benguet, has been identified as a potential producer of export quality Arabica coffee beans.
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