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Coffee farming is not as simple as planting a seed, harvesting its fruits and selling the crop to traders. The business model of George Salinas’ Nayong Kalikasan Barako Integrated Farm (NKBIF) in Alfonso, Cavite is like a 3-in-1 coffee mix for involving three strategies.
The coffee conservationist believes that local coffee farms are disappearing because farmers are selling their land to subdivision developers. To preserve existing coffee farms, Salinas encourages farmers to grow the crop and helps raise cultivators’ profits.
Adopt-a-barako tree
NKBIF has an Adopt-a-Barako Tree program, wherein donors and visitors are invited to sponsor the purchase of barako seedlings that they can plant in the farm. According to Salinas, proceeds of the sales will go to the purchase of barako seedlings that will be donated to members of the Alfonso Cavite Coffee Growers Agriculture Cooperative. The donated seedlings will be planted and grown by coop farmers in the NKBIF. The coop farmers can sell the coffee cherries as their livelihood.
Raising demand
“We want to make the coffee farm profitable. Hence, we have to create more demand for coffee,” Salinas told Daily Tribune.
That means not only making coffee drinkable but also eatable and versatile like being used as a painting medium, he says.
NKBIF partners with chefs to create new products like Barako Cookies, Barako Chocolate Coated Beans, and Barako Kaong by Ingrid Mediarito; Barako Empanada by Jay Gibson Eronico; Barako Ice Cream by May Ann Hernan; and Barako Sausage by Wenzel Roxas.
“These chefs buy Nayong Kalikasan Barako Integrated Farm’s Barako coffee and use it in their products, and then, the Nayong Kalikasan Barako Integrated Farm buy their products and resell them,” says Salinas.
“The nearby farmers have coffee and they sell it to us and we buy it at a higher price. In this way, we were able to help them,” he adds.
Organic fertilizer
NKBIF produces high quality coffee using organic fertilizer.
“We use 60 percent of organic fertilizer like vermicast. Since 2019, we are buying African Night Crawlers in Facebook Marketplace which come from farm to farm and its wastes are being used as a compost,” Salinas explains. Gwyneth Grace Socao.
