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OUR BUKIDNON COFFEE PROCESSING PLANT IS OPERATIONAL

CFPBukidnon

The Opportunity. PeaceBuilders Community, Inc. (PBCI) has been organizing Peace and Reconciliation (PAR) Communities in armed conflicted areas of Mindanao and throughout the Philippines for the past 10 years. A major aspect of this PAR community development is the establishment of inclusive growth initiatives. Coffee growing, processing, and marketing is the most sustainable livelihood program in most of the communities where PAR initiative is welcomed and embraced by the local people. The coffee products are sold to Coffee For Peace at fair-trade price, who in turn, market the products locally and globally. There has been an increased global demand for coffee.

The Challenge. Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Mindanao who are involved in the coffee industry are facing enormous challenges to meet the market demand for their products.  MSMEs, by themselves, cannot acquire modern machinery, equipment and tools required to increase their productivity due to huge capital investment necessary for such acquisition. We need a Shared Service Facility (SSF) which will use a wet-mill process for better tasting coffee and higher market value. This SSF would have rinsing and fermentation tank, depulping machine, good water supply, drying facility, dehulling machine, and storage.

The Solution. PBCI has approached the Bukidnon office of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), a Philippine government agency, to work with us in setting up such SSF to help coffee farmers with post-harvest processing. This SSF project would serve the coffee industry cluster of the province specifically the small farmers being served by PBCI. After going through DTI’s qualification process, PBCI signed a Memorandum of Agreement with DTI in 28 August 2014. With DTI’s input of PhP3.83M worth of machinery and equipment, this project is expected to generate a total investment of PhP14.6M, including PBCI’s counterpart in ancillary facilities (estimated at PhP8.5M) and operating costs (estimated at PhP2.27M). This project is expected to produce an annual volume of 64,000 kilos and average sales of PhP8.96M per year for green beans. For roasted beans, the expected sales is PhP51.2M. This endeavor would also generate a total of 959 direct and indirect employment.