The Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) expects a million new coffee plants to be planted in various mountain farms and terraces of the Cordillera in northern Luzon as part of the sustained success of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani-High Value Crops (GMA-HVC).

Robert Domoguen, public information officer of the DA-Cordillera office, said that several coffee nurseries in Ifugao have started distributing last week almost 100,000 Arabic coffee seedlings to coffee farmers in the area in order to increase their existing sources of coffee seeds.

Records show that with the GMA-HVC, several high value crops like coffee, cacao, abaca, yakun, strawberry, bananas, white potatoes, cutflowers, rambutan and longan have been produced in commercial scale.

Coffee farmers were encouraged to triple their production due to the increasing demand of coffee beans in the local market because of their high quality being grown in fertile mountains with high elevation and cool temperature, Domoguen said.

Last December, former presidential management staff chief Mike Defensor and Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap travelled to areas in the Cordilleras in order to further campaign for agricultural productivity being the great contribution of the residents to the objectives of the super economic region in Northern Luzon.

In Kalinga, the two officials gave some P20 million (US$409,496) as initial government assistance in the development of coffee plantations in at least three municipalities where coffee growing is among the indigenous livelihood of the people.

Prior to the visit, national coordinators of the GMA-HVC have determined that two farming associations of Mountain Province and Benguet will be able to develop wide areas for the cash crop this year.

The expansion is in line with the DA target that until 2010, the region will have an annual export of a dozen tons of coffee seeds for instant coffee manufacturers.

Records show that prior to government support to coffee production, local farmers only planted coffee for their own consumption and a little for commercial ground coffee merchants in this city.

We have to think of not only of the available local markets but also of international buyers of our coffee seeds. That is why, the DA and the local government units this year have started the coffee production expansion and we are bound to sustain it until we can have a good share in the international demand of the raw material for instant coffee, he said.