Coffee and coconut

Did you know that both coffee and coconut industries? need your help ? Not just by consuming more, but by planting more trees! A lot of our coconut trees are senile and are past their productive years. They need to be replaced by younger and more prolific varieties like the dwarf and other hybrids. Yes, though I want to keep heirloom varieties of almost any crop, we need to listen to experts when it comes to coconuts. Dwarf varieties make it easier for even women to harvest the nuts. Remember how we have to look for the town’s “climber” to reach for coconuts like thirty feet high? With dwarf coconuts that issue has been solved as these trees are shorter than their forefathers.

With coffee, I have been writing articles to alarm coffee lovers that we need to plant more trees to satisfy our daily consumption of caffeine. The Philippines’ annual consumption is pushing upwards of 130,000 Metric tons of coffee while our production remains low. This is not because we are not doing anything about it. While we plant and with Gforest we are planting over 250,000 new trees, the old trees are being cut down in the name of development. You have seen the now 20-year urbanization of Batangas and Cavite, which used to have thousands of hectares of Liberica (Barako) and Robusta. Your favorite drink used to come from nearby towns of Silang or Amadeo, Cavite and Lipa, Batangas. But a drive to these coffee towns will show malls, golf courses and resorts.

But here’s a solution or two. The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) is hell bent on planting millions of trees specially in Region 4, Calabarzon. The ingenious plan is to intercrop it with coffee as the two are companions and can live together well. In Region 4 the PCA office has even accepted the offer of the famous international singer Apl.de.ap to be the coffee-coconut ambassador to promote this combo of coffee and coconut.

Last August, we started a small demo farm in Amadeo, Cavite to show the productivity and efficiency as well as monetary profits when you plant coffee with coconut. Apl.de.ap himself went to the demo farm last month? to plant? ceremonial trees of dwarf coconut and Robusta coffee, further cementing his commitment to promote this project or program.

Coconut farms may very well listen to this new formula of intercropping their coconuts with coffee and replenishing old and senile trees with new ones. There even are “macapuno” seedlings available. Macapuno , also called coconut sport, used to be found by chance. It is a naturally occurring cultivar whose endosperm has an abnormal development.The result of this development forms a translucent jelly-like flesh which fills the entire cavity and develops without coconut water. It is a prized fruit or nut because we make sweet desserts out of it, usually for Halo-halo. Today, with research and development, you can now plant a tree that will surely be a Macapuno.

Coffee, on the other hand, will gladly accept coconut as a neighbor or companion crop. Robusta, the variety we grow so much of , are smaller than Barako so you can contain more trees per hectare. This way, you will maximize the use of your land and profit from both crops. And with today’s high Robusta prices, farmers will be very happy harvesting the coffee albeit just once a year. Both of them , coconut and coffee can last for many generations like up to 80 years of age. Coconut can produce 70-100 nuts per year, some even reaching 150 nuts a year.

Almost every month, a coconut tree can give you a bunch or “buig” as we say in local parlance, so you can enjoy your fruits all year round. In our coffee-coconut farm, we get coconuts weekly, going from one tree to another in a rotating manner.?

I think we continue to be the second largest producer of coconuts in the ASEAN region with about 3.6 million hectares planted to the crop. Statistics say we have over 340 million coconut trees around the country capable of producing 14-15 billion nuts yearly.

Now imagine all of that coconut land areas being intercropped with coffee. This could very well solve our coffee demand (about 100,000 metric tons ) and we will then not rely on imports of our favorite brew. This is how important coconut is to the coffee industry . And both products are very familiar to us, unlike seaweed or carrageenan, which we cannot readily consume. But for these two, coffee and coconut, we encounter them everyday in various forms. Coconut figures in almost everything we eat and cook—cooking oil, cosmetic products, dessert and more.

We thank Apl.de.ap for volunteering to spearhead this promotion and being the poster child for coffee and coconut. Thanks also to PCA Region 4 for going around the various areas in Calabarzon to establish nurseries, clonal gardens and demo farms.

We may have just found the solution to our coffee insecurity—that we may not have enough coffee for the years to come. With even just half of the coconut areas being intercropped with coffee, we can secure our domestic consumption of our favorite brew. Robusta, Liberica and Excelsa are three coffee varieties that can very well grow with coconut. And if you look at new areas suitable for coconut, most if not all will probably will be fine for coffee, too.

And it goes the other way, too. New coffee plantings can use coconut as shade trees, too. This may be the best companions to ensure continuous supply and probably even have some left over for exports.

Coffee and coconut. Partners forever. Throw in an international star promoting both and we may have just found a bright and perky solution to? make agriculture sexy again.

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