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United
States-based conglomerate Mars Inc. has put up a
multimillion-peso “cacao development center” in
Davao in its bid to obtain more of the quality beans for its
operations by helping local planters develop better
beans.
Edward
David, president of the Philippine Cocoa Foundation (PCF),
said the development center will open on March 31. “The
center will make available all the best technologies
that local farmers can use in growing high-quality cacao
beans.”
David
did not say how much they are investing in the center
but that it could cost more than P100 million. He noted
the center will feature techno-demo farms and new
postharvest technologies.
Since
the Philippines has recently adopted new standards for
cacao beans, David said the center will also aim to
familiarize farmers with the new standards to put local
cacao beans on a par with world standards.
Earlier,
an executive of Mars assured local farmers they will
have a ready market for cacao beans if the local
industry can assure the company they can supply the
increasing needs of the chocolate industry, particularly
their firm.
Peter
van Grinsven, manager of the Cocoa Sustainability Field
Research of Mars Inc., said earlier the chocolate
industry requires a reliable and sustainable supply of
cocoa—the by-product of cacao beans.
Mars
noted that the
Philippines
has the potential to earn up to $150 million in cocoa
exports annually if it could expand its existing
production areas for cacao.
David
said the local industry, through Success Alliance 2, is
planning to make cacao one of the country’s top 10
export winners in five years. Success Alliance 2 is a
three-year program aimed at improving cocoa production
in the country through a $2.8-million grant from the
United States Agency for International Development.
Other
sponsors of the project include the US Department of
Agriculture, PCF, World Cocoa Foundation and Masterfoods.
The project seeks to train 17,000 Filipino cacao farmers
and is seen as a boost to the 10-year “cacao road map”
of government.
With the
national road map, David said, the local industry aims
to produce 100,000 metric tons (MT) of cacao over the
next five years. Last year the Philippines produced only
about 5,000 MT.
Earlier,
he had noted the country has a large domestic market for
cacao. The Philippines was the first Asian country to
plant cacao and develop its cocoa industry.
But the
implementation of the comprehensive agrarian-reform
program led to the demise of many cacao plantations in
the 1990s, according to industry players.
The
country requires about 13,000 MT of cacao beans each
year, although its production peak is only about 7,000
MT annually. The Philippines imports more than half of
its requirement for cacao beans from Indonesia and cocoa
powder from Singapore.
The
imports are processed and re-exported to Malaysia, South
Korea, and the US in the form of cocoa butter, cocoa
paste and cocoa pellets. |
