Ilocos Sur farmer produces quality coffee beans

Robusta coffee, Sigay’s one-town-one-product. 

By Reynaldo E. Andres

MMSU

SIGAY, Ilocos Sur—Coffee traders in Ilocos region who are looking for aromatic coffee beans like those produced in Batangas and Cavite need not go too far. They can find them in the farm house of Simeon Acbayan, 61, at Brgy. San Elias, Sigay, Ilocos Sur.

Mr. Acbayan’s farm house is always loaded with sacks of dried coffee beans ready for market. These world class coffee beans are those of the Robusta variety which abundantly dot a two-hectare slopes of a hill owned by Mr. Acbayan.

Because of Mr. Acbayan’s success in producing quality and aromatic coffee beans, Sigay has now become a well-known trading “entrepot” center of small and big time coffee traders in Luzon.

In fact, the local government of Sigay has made this morning beverage as its one-town-one-product (OTOP) since 2009 and recommended Mr. Acbayan to the Ilocos Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development Consortium (ILAARRDEC) to be the farmer-scientist for coffee in the town’s Farmer’s Information and Technology Services (FITS) center.

Concurrently the chairperson of Brgy. San Elias, Mr. Acbayan is now being tapped by Marites Bagawe, Cheryl Bitibit and Valentina Zita of the Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO) as lecturer in seminars for coffee farmers.

Mr. Acbayan’s two-hectare coffee plantation is giving him substantial yield throughout the year that he and his son could no longer manage to harvest the berries. In most cases, they just leave the berries ripe in their branches waiting for the birds and foxes to eat them, or these will just drop off to the ground to germinate later. This is the reason why he cannot control the population density of his plantation.

The author (left), Simeon Acbayan (center) and Ernesto Mendoza of OPAG Ilocos Sur enjoy the sweet Robusta berries. (Photo by Richard Guinsatao, ILAARRDEC)

Mr. Acbayan said that with his vast area planted with Robusta coffee, he can only manage to harvest the berries of the half hectare portion which gives him a little more than 25 sacks of fresh coffee beans a year. A sack contains 25 gantas of dried coffee beans. And with the current price of P70 per ganta, Mr. Acbayan is getting a substantial income of P43,750 in one harvesting season alone. That is only from the sale of his harvest from a half hectare area.

Mr. Acbayan laments that if he could only manage to harvest all the berries of the remaining 1.5 hectares, he could have a P175,000 income in one season.   Mr. Acbayan’s coffee trees are laden with fruits that a single tree yields 15 gantas of dried coffee beans.

“I tried planting the Arabica variety, but it commanded a very low price by traders coming from Batangas and Cavite. That’s why I cut down all the Arabica varieties and replaced them with Robusta,” Mr. Acbayan explained.

Inside the coffee plantation of Simeon Acbayan (center) in Brgy. San Elias, Sigay, Ilocos Sur. Also in the photo are (from L-R): Alice Hernando of MMSU, Valentina Zita, Marites Bagawe, Cheryl Bitibit (Sigay FITS Center), Ernesto Mendoza of OPAG Ilocos Sur, the author, Lovely Viloria (ILARRDEC employee), and Bernie Dayang of MMSU (Photo by Richard Guinsatao, ILAARRDEC)

His technology

Mr. Acbayan shares his technology in planting the Robusta coffee variety. And for those who may want to start a small plantation, they can get free seedlings from him. And these are the things one may consider in establishing a coffee plantation:

Robusta coffee does not need so much commercial organic or inorganic fertilizer as long as it is planted in a moist soil rich with decomposed leaves and plant parts. It is best to plant the tree in a well-drained soil with pH of about 5.5 - 6.5. Coffee needs a place with a moderately wet and cool climate so that it could give its maximum yield potential.

If one can provide the plant with these simple requirements, there would be no reason why the plant would not flower in March until April and bear fruits in May until February in the succeeding year.

Seed selection

Select seeds that are healthy. Peel the berries and soak them in water for 24 hours. Wash the seeds afterwards. Air dry the seeds in shaded open area for four days before planting them in polyethylene plastic bags. Make sure that the soil in polyethylene plastic bags are always moist to hasten germination which usually takes 45 days after sowing.

But for Mr. Acbayan, he doesn’t need to put up a nursery for seed germination. If he wants to expand his plantation, he just uproots those that germinated in between the old trees and plant them in vacant portions of the hill.

He said that matured seedlings that have reached a height of four feet could yield fruits after three years that they are transplanted.

Simeon Acbayan with the author while inspecting the dried coffee berries.

For those who want to begin planting coffee, it is better to sow the seeds in polyethylene plastic bags which measure 4” x 4” x 10” before they are transplanted at 6 months after germination which will coincide at the onset of rainy season. By that time, the seedlings would have 6 pairs of young leaves.

According to experts from the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD) in Los Baños, Laguna, the best planting distance for coffee is 4 x 4 meters to 5 x 5 meters so that the plants will receive uniform amount of sunlight.

Care for the plants

Mr. Acbayan said that coffee trees are not hard to manage because they are not susceptible to pests and diseases. He knows of only one pest that seldom attacks his trees—the coffee twig borer, which is the most dreaded pest of coffee.

When the pest drills itself in the twigs, the leaves will turn to yellow. When Mr. Acbayan sees this symptom, he immediately cuts the infected twigs and burn them. If not, he could control the pest by applying any of the recommended pesticide four times during the plant’s fruiting stage. But to be sure he sprays the trees only once in every 14 – 21 days.

Farmers also need to cut or prune the old branches because they hardly bear fruits. This is to give chance for the trees to produce new buds that will bear fruits in the next seasons. Experts call this rejuvenation technique.

One good reason of employing rejuvenation technique is that you can easily maintain the desired tallness of the plants for easy harvesting of berries. It is recommended to prune the trees before they bear flowers, or just after harvesting.

Mr. Acbayan said there are three methods of pruning coffee trees. One is the twig pruning method which is the removal of crooked and diseased branches. Another is the desuckering method which is the removal of the buds that emanate from the main stems. The other one is called detopping which is done by removing the upper canopy of the tree so that it could only reach a height of 1.5 – 2 meters for easy management.

Farmer-scientist Simeon Acbayan (right) shares his brewed Robusta coffee to this author (second from right). Also in the photo are (from L-R): Alice Hernando, Lovely Viloria (ILAARRDEC employees) and Ernesto Mendoza of the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist of Ilocos Sur. (Photo by Richard Guinsatao of ILAARRDEC).

Lastly, don’t forget to fertilize the trees once in a while especially if the soil is not so much rich with organic matters. It’s enough to apply 180-90-180 kilograms of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium (NPK) for a one-hectare coffee plantation.