The Department of Agriculture 12, Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP)-Project Support Office, Provincial Local Government Unit of Sultan Kudarat, non-government organizations, coffee cluster leaders and other government agencies inked recently the Memorandum of Agreement of Inter-agency Convergence to Support the Development of Sultan Kudarat Coffee Industry.

With this document, the convergence sets out a platform for a synergistic partnership among partner agencies and private sector in providing support to the PLGU of Sultan Kudarat in the implementation of its PCIP.

Moreover, this will further boost the interest of the participating government agencies who agrees to align their existing programs and projects, and utilize their resources to address the issues/gaps in coffee value chain.

The signing ceremony was attended by Dennis Arpia, OIC-Regional Executive Director of the Department of Agriculture 12; Governor Suharto Mangudadatu of Sultan Kudarat; Ronan Eugene Garcia-President, Sultan Kudarat Coffee Council; and other dignitaries from government agencies and private sectors.

Director Arpia, also the Regional Project Director of PRDP in Region 12, said that the agency will now focus on marketing the coffee of SOCCSKSARGEN.

“I consider this as my personal advocacy to be consistent in helping our marginalized coffee farmers… we will market and package the native coffee of SOCCSKSARGEN, particularly, the coffee from Sultan Kudarat,” he noted.

“According to studies recently conducted coffee farmers in the region have an average annual income of P15,000-P20,000 per hectare,” the director said.

He added that studies show as well that one hectare of coffee production area provides two direct employment, and two indirect employment.

With this, the government must provide opportunities for coffee farmers to maximize production and marketing in order to increase their income and provide additional employment to people.

Coffee is one of the priority commodities of the said province as per their Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP).

The PCIP is one of the mainstreamed tools by the PRDP to the local government units. Sultan Kudarat is the number one coffee producing-province in the whole archipelago.

The said province has one enterprise subproject, worth 10-Million Pesos, jointly funded with PRDP. Production and Marketing of Green Coffee Beans Project is an expansion of proposal of the Masiag Farmers and Coffee Growers Association. It is estimated to benefit 200 coffee farmers.

This multilateral Memorandum of Agreement will become a platform to institutionalize synergistic partnership among various government agencies and other stakeholders in addressing gaps/constraints in the value chain of coffee industry, and in line with the implementation of PCIP of Sultan Kudarat Province.

Also, this platform is expected to enhance public-private partnership to scale up support to develop coffee industry and other commodities in the province.  Among the target benchmarks is the alignment of regular programs and projects of the participating agencies towards PCIP implementation of the province. (Carl Ulysses Aguillon| RPCO 12)