TACURONG CITY (MindaNews / 31 October) – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered the Department of Agriculture (DA) to boost the country’s coffee production anew, with the top priority to be accorded to Sultan Kudarat, the country’s major coffee producer, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said.
He noted the agency will invest on more farm-to-market roads in Sultan Kudarat in the bid to increase the province’s coffee production.
Tiu Laurel said the DA will also provide quality coffee seedlings for Sultan Kudarat farmers to boost their harvest.
“The President instructed me to strengthen our coffee industry anew. We will start with Sultan Kudarat early in 2026,” Tiu Laurel told coffee farmers attending the culmination of Project Coffee++ on Thursday here.
Project Coffee++, the banner project under Nescafe Plan, is a capacity-building initiative jointly led by Nestle Philippines and the German International Agency for Cooperation (GIZ).
Over 100 coffee farmers from Sultan Kudarat and Bukidnon who benefited from Project Coffee++ graced the culmination activity.
Tiu Laurel said that after Sultan Kudarat, the DA would focus next on enhancing Bukidnon’s coffee production in the second half of 2026.
His pronouncement was greeted with jubilation by the coffee farmers and other stakeholders gracing the occasion.
Sultan Kudarat Gov. Datu Pax Ali Mangudadatu welcomed the agriculture secretary’s announcement, saying this would significantly help improve the province’s coffee production.
He stressed the vital role of the coffee industry in his province.
“Coffee is an important industry in our province with at least 20,000 families dependent on coffee growing for their livelihood,” he said.
During the press conference, the governor said they would need at least P6 billion to construct farm-to-market (FMR) roads to help boost coffee production and the other agricultural products in the province.
“That (FMR) will really help a lot of our coffee farmers…We need to provide access to our constituents from their farms to the markets in the lowlands,” Mangudadatu said.
He lamented that lack of quality coffee planting materials is among the challenges hampering its production.
In a brief interview, Mangudadatu told MindaNews that DA’s allocation intended to boost Sultan Kudarat’s coffee industry and the agriculture sector in general should have been included in the proposed national budget for next year.
“All we have to do is to wait for the GAA (General Appropriations Act),” he said.
Congress has yet to approve the 2026 GAA.
Aside from infrastructure development such as FMRs, he said that local coffee farmers need quality planting materials and fertilizers to boost production.
“We need all the support that we can. At the end of the day, sa farmers diretso ang mga yan at hindi dadaan sa province. Ang atin dito, they should feel the government (is working for them),” the governor said.
Based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority released last year, Sultan Kudarat is the top coffee producer in the country in 2023 with a volume of 21,442 metric tons (MT), followed by Bukidnon with 9,042 MT and Cavite with 8,190 MT. (MindaNews / Bong S. Sarmiento)
