Cocoa farmers find sweet spot in exports

By Riza T. Olchondra
Philippine Daily Inquirer

SINCE the 17th century, Filipinos have been comforted by treats made from local cocoa – from chocolate de batirol and champorado to chocolate cakes and candies.

Current production is only about 6,000 metric tons (MT) out of the 36,000 MT of cocoa consumed in the country per year, but local producers are on the move to share local cocoa with other markets and carve out a sweet spot in the international market.

“Few people know about it, but we have already started exporting cocoa,” Edward David, president of the Cocoa Foundation of the Philippines (Cocoaphil), told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the sidelines of the recently-concluded Philippine Cacao Summit.

He said that a small batch (7 MT) of organically grown cocoa and a larger batch of 30 MT were sold separately to global companies just before the summit last month.

“The buyers are clamoring for more. So we are really encouraged to accelerate our efforts to increase production and improve quality control in preparation for large shipments,” David said.

David said Philippine cocoa growers wanted to stop importation, which has become pervasive since the cocoa industry thinned out in the 1990s, when farmers who got parcels of land under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program failed to maintain their cocoa trees.

David believes the country can produce enough to have a surplus starting 2015.

Cocoaphil’s plan is to intercrop at least 50 million cocoa trees with coconut to produce at least 100,000 MT or $300 million worth of export-quality cocoa beans by 2015.

The global demand for cocoa beans grows at about 90,000 MT annually.

David said that the desired output can be attained if more than two million hectares of coconut land are intercropped with cocoa.

Nic Richards of Acdi-Voca, an international economic development organization helping Cocoaphil, said this would position cocoa as one of the country’s top three agricultural sectors.

David said that the cocoa industry could become a top exporter with the help of the local Department of Agriculture (DA) and its American counterpart, the USDA. Both have started talks on new cocoa technologies.

The DA’s Bureau of Agricultural Research, meanwhile, is working to establish at least 50 hectares of cocoa farms in the municipalities of Tiaong, Dolores, San Antonio, and Tagkawayan in Quezon and a two-hectare technology demonstration farm to produce 15,000 quality grafted cocoa seedlings for distribution to farmers.

With these actions, it will only be a matter of time before Philippine cocoa makes it big in the world market.