Beyond The Cup: My Nescafe Coffee Farm Experience

Last week, I was invited by Nescafe to have a coffee farm experience, it is sort of an immersion on a life of a coffee farmer and a coffee.  This happened at three farms and a coffee bean buying station in Davao del Norte, Mindnao.   I was lucky to be one of the fisrt five bloggers Nescafe invited to have this trip. I had been into coffee shops in Metro Manila who let me experience how to be a barista and appreciate processed coffee already but this experience is one for the books because it was a beyond the cup encounter.   Now I appreciate a cup of coffee more than ever.

 

Coffee Propagation

Coffee grows in trees, trees that are classified as shrubs anyway. Before, Nescafe would import seedling from Paris. But a few years ago they have learned how to propagate a seedling. Now we don’t import these seedlings anymore!

This is where they do it. The Nestle Experimental and Demo Farm (NEDF) in Magdum, Tagum City, Davao de Norte, Mindanao.   This is Nescafe’s a one-stop shop serving as a Robusta seedling production nursery, a local R&D center for new coffee selections, training and techno-demo center, a buying station and a composting facility for organic fertilizer.

From the tree they cut the stems in a such a technique only a Nescafe Agronomist know howAnd then they propagate them for 3 months until they get the root of their own. When they’ve grown roots, they’ll transfer them again into another growing area for a couple of months.Until it reach a certain height that is ready for planting! That is what they call the seedlings!These seedlings are sold to coffee farmers by Nescafe for Php12.00 a seedling.  Coffee PlatingThis is one of the fun part, coffee planting! They taught us the proper way of planting a seedling.  From the depth of the hole where the seedling will be planted from which soil comes first .After watching how to do it I was able to plant my own coffee tree!After a couple of months we will come back (I wish) to do the bending of the tree we planted. Bending is important as to create that three stem tree/shrub which makes the coffee tree bear a lot of fruit for harvesting.We visited a farm in Del Pilar, New Corella, Davao del Norte who planted some of the seedlings bought at the NEDF in November 2009. Now some of the coffee tree are flourishing and some are ready for harvesting!Some farms plant more than just coffee, some plant banana, rice, calamansi and other crops.After harvesting, the coffee beans are sun dried!When the beans are dried they are hulled and are ready for selling and for quality testing at the buying stations

Coffee Beans Quality Control, Grading and Buying Stations

We visited one of Nescafe’s buying station in Tagum City, Davao de Norte. We were just in time for a delivery from a local coffee buyer.

They take samples from each sacks delivered to ensure quality.

Out of the samples taken only 300 grams will be used for the quality control and grading sampling

Beans are separated and weight according to their damage or problem if they are immature beans, insect damaged, crushed, black beans and other problems
When they weight everything the beans are then roasted and grinded for taste testing/cupping

I felt sad because this delivery did not past the quality testing. They failed by 1%!

Amazing Coffee Facts in the Philippines and Worldwide

• Did you know that coffee is the 2nd most consumed beverage inside the household next to water worldwide?
• Coffee is also 2nd to the largest traded commodity after petroleum globally?
• The Philippines is the 2nd biggest Nescafe market in the world.
• Coffee is the #1 beverage consumed in the Philippines
• Filipinos consume more than 21 million cups (21,600,000 cups) every day. That means 900,000 cups every hour. 15,000 cups every minute and 250 cups every second.
• Sadly only 30% of our coffee is locally supplied.  The Philippines import 70% of the coffee beans!

 

 

The Nescafe Plan

With all this facts in mind the Nescafe Plan was created.   The Nescafe PlanBefore we go through the entire experience we had a short briefing about the Nescafe Plan. The NESCAFÉ Plan is a global initiative that supports responsible farming, production and consumption. Nestlé believes that for a company to be successful in the long term and create value for its shareholders, it must also create value for society.This is in line with  Nestlé’s global commitment to Responsible Farming, Responsible Production and Supply and Responsible Consumption in Coffee (for more details, please visit www.nescafe.com).

Another key program under Responsible Farming is Farmer Connect, a direct buying program that encourages small farmers and small-scale intermediaries to sell their produce directly to Nestlé. At the core of the Farmer Connect Model are the Nestlé Satellite Buying Stations, which are strategically situated at various points around the country. Through the direct buying stations, not only can small farmers sell their produce directly to Nestlé, they are guaranteed of getting a buying price which is aligned with global market prices. It also enables farmers to get the payment within 8 banking hours, thus the farmers can immediately benefit from the sale of their produce to Nestlé.

I have learned so much in this trip. I was actually convinced to become a coffee farmer myself. It is hard work but worth the investment. A coffee tree yields for 50 years. From seedling it will start to bear fruit and ready for harvesting after 18 months and will bear fruit every 9 months. Return of investment (ROI) is about after 3 years and the rest will be your income minus the expense of renting the land or from your land purchase, and the man power you need to maintain your farm if you won’t be hands on. But if you have an existing farm then this is a good investment.

You can ask Nescafe Philippines to  know more about this or visit www.nescafe.com to know more about the Nescafe Plan and more beyond the cup of coffee you consume everyday!

Stay gorgeous everyone!