DAVAO CITY—The Cacao Industry Development Association (Cidami) will host this year’s international gathering of cacao industry players within Asia and the Pacific in September.
Val Turtur, executive director of Cidami, said they are expecting about a thousand participants in the Asia Pacific Cacao Congress scheduled from September 15 to 17 at the SMX Convention Center.
He added that the gathering was organized three years ago through the Kakao Konek, where industry players, from buyers, traders, farmers, officers of government organizations and private institutions, converge to continuously tackle relevant steps that will help enhance the production and improve the business development of cocoa.
He said foreign participants will include among others, those from the United States, Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia and from other Asian countries and the Philippines.
International resource persons were also invited to provide updates and share inputs on the latest trend within the environment of the cacao industry.
Engr. Edwin Banquerigo, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) director for Davao City and the coordinator for the DTI National Cacao Industry Cluster, said the cacao industry in the country must be upgraded to the global chain.
The Asia Pacific cooperation, he said, is a good timing because “we need to look at the Asean on how to link our efforts and move up to the global chain.”
“We have to upgrade the cacao industry,” he said, adding that there is now a move to expand production and improve the quality of beans.
He said, “We still need to meet the target of product efficiency by producing 2 kilos of beans per tree per year as against the current production, which is still at 1 kilo of beans per tree per year.”
With this development, Banquerigo said that under the Philippine Cacao Industry Road Map, the clustering approach has been adopted, where the public-private partnership is about inclusion, convergence and collaboration.
While demand is an uptrend, he said supply gap continues to exist due to production constraints. The Philippines is among the countries in Asia seen to have a competitive edge on cacao production, given its strategic location, growing condition and taking into account the 2 million hectares of coconut farms, which are ideal for coconut-cacao intercropping.
Current Philippine production, Banquerigo said, stands only at 10,000 to 12,000 metric tons from the 20,000 to 25,000 hectares planted based on the industry cluster estimates.
The Davao region has 9,769 hectares (based from the data of the local government units planted to cacao), contributing 80 percent to the national production. The rest of Mindanao contributes 10 percent to the total national production, while Luzon and the Visayas share the remaining 10 percent.
He said the world demand for cacao has nearly tripled since 1970, growing at an annual rate of 3 percent with China and India growing at 7.9 percent.
Banquerigo said one of the primary drivers of this increase is the growing middle class, increasing discretionary household income in developing countries, new and innovative uses of cacao, and the positioning of cacao as health food.
He disclosed that the world cacao-grinding requirement was forecast at 4.146 million metric tons (MMT). The Asia grinding requirement is already at 1 MMT but only 0.5 MMT can be supplied coming from the Asean region.
Banquerigo said the current Philippine production is not even enough to supply local grinding requirements estimated at 40,000 MT.
He said the task is huge and “we need the one value chain approach to increase productivity level, expand production areas, move up the value chain, level up quality standards and strengthen market presence through branding.