Ah, coffee – that hot drink produced from the roasted beans of the coffee plant. According to some reliable reports, eight out of 10 adults in the country drink an average of 2.5 cups of coffee every day.
But Filipinos are not the only people who drink coffee. In fact, people around the globe consume coffee – in all forms – 100 million bags (one bag weighs about 60 kilos). The total value of this consumption is reportedly US$10 billion, thus making coffee the second largest traded commodity in the world after oil.
Casey Burnett is an American who has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Education from Clemson University. He taught for a couple of years in the US before he was assigned as a Southern Baptist missionary in the Himalayas, where he became interested in coffee. In 2004, he came to the Philippines as part of the Nehemiah Teams, a mission group.
In 2010, he started his first small coffee mill in Butuan City, where he met Judith. The two got married and he brought his wife to the United States where they operated Cup of Hope of Coffee for about five years.
The couple took a break from coffee for a couple of years until “God had put on our hearts to start a children’s home for abandoned children in the Philippines.” In those years that followed, they built up businesses that could support themselves financially.
In the beginning of 2023, the Burnetts returned to the country and settled in Bukidnon where they started No Longer Abandoned, a US non-profit organization which would help support the ministry of the Burnetts in the Philippines. The Philippine counterpart is called Solid Rock Children Development Foundation, Inc., which would manage a home for abandoned children in cooperation with the Department of Social Welfare and Development; it will also be engaged in agricultural and vocational training programs.
Bukidnon Coffee Exchange
Since Burnett is very familiar with coffee, he thought of using the crop as an entry to reach the community in the area where they are now living. So, he launched the Bukidnon Coffee Exchange with the aim of providing the highest quality local coffee in the province.
“Using our background in agriculture and community development, our business goal is to help coffee farmers make more money by creating and strengthening cooperatives,” he explains. “We will also create stable supply chains where we can improve the post-harvest and milling facilities with strategically located full-service coffee mills and buying stations.”
That’s a tall order but Burnett is aiming to make it happen. “We can give the farmers the option to sell red berries or green coffee beans, or we can mill for farmers at an agreed rate,” he says. “Our mills will all include a color sorter, which will replace the slow, heavy cost of manually sorting coffee beans. This will improve the quality of the coffee and save farmers money.”
Already, Burnett has ordered all the milling equipment in the United States. He is thinking of operating an entire coffee mill in Kalasungay, an urban barangay in the North Highway District of Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
“We want to work with all the farmers near Mount Kitanglad,” he says. Mount Kitanglad is an inactive volcano and is the fourth highest mountain in the country. It is located between Malaybalay City and the towns of Lantapan, Impasugong, Sumilao and Libona.
“We have been actively looking to buy land, and every deal has hit a snag,” he says. “We will continue to look for land which we can use for training farmers. We will also look to lease land, especially tribal land, for coffee development.”
Arabica coffee
There are several types of coffee, but he thinks the best coffee to grow is Arabica, an upland species and requires an average annual temperature of 18 to 25 degrees Celsius with 1,500 to 2,500 millimeters of rainfall. The cherries of this shrub are oblong-ellipsoid; they are green in color, and later turn red or yellow when ripe. The size of the seed ranges from 8.5 to 12.7 centimeters long.
“There is a high demand for locally produced Arabica,” he says. “The Philippines consumes much more coffee than is grown, therefore, farmers can get higher than the world market prices if the quality is right. There is no need to export.”
Burnett hopes the project will be in operation by early 2024. “Our first goals will be establishing partner growers and helping educate farmers on how to improve coffee production in Bukidnon,” he says. “We will also be buying coffee beans quite a bit this year so we have inventory next year.”
He says coffee is much better to grow than other crops. “One advantage of coffee is you can dry and store it,” he says. “Fruits and vegetables may bring a good market price, but being able to store coffee is like storing gold or saving dollars; it’s a good store of value.”
The person who will be helping him in this endeavor is Gilbert Suico, who will manage the farm and the milling operations. “Once we begin farming, our staff will grow substantially,” he says.
Coffee production
Suico has already gotten some seed stock, a bourbon cultivar, from one of the farmers in the area. “Catimor is the most commonly planted coffee,” he says. “We have heard of a mysterious ‘sweet’ variety of Arabica that is grown near the town of Pangantucan. It is an excellent variety that we would love to introduce.”
Burnett is targeting to plant 50 to 100 hectares of coffee in the area. “The most common problems are coffee cherry borer, coffee rust, and dieback from over-flowering,” he says. “All of these can be handled with proper care throughout the year. It’s also important to have a good pruning, cleaning, and fertilization schedule.”
Coffee production is very labor intensive. “Traditionally, coffee is harvested and the entire coffee cherries are dried to around 12% t0 13% moisture content,” he says. “Coffee is usually dried on the road or near the ground and it absorbs whatever odor is near it. Once it rains, they cover it with a tarp until the sun comes out and then continues to dry it. This is the most common method and this is one of the reasons why the coffee quality is poor.”
Burnett suggests wet processing. “Coffee cherries go into water, where bad cherries that float are removed,” he says. “The cherries then go through a pulper and are fermented to remove the fruit. This is also a critical stage for the flavor of the coffee. After the fruit pulp has been washed off, the seeds are dried, that’s what we call parchment. The parchment is then hulled and you have clean green coffee beans.”
Another method is the honey process, where the seeds and pulp are separated. Fermentation is not required. This changes the flavor and gives different flavors; it also has less acidity.
Sharing techniques
In his project, he wants to share the techniques to farmers. “Our goal is to control as much of the process as possible for local farmers,” he says. “We will have wet processing stations, solar dryers, hullers, density machines, and the big win for the farmers is having a color sorter available for our growers.”
Defect coffee beans lower the value and quality of the coffee. “This typically takes weeks to sort through and is very expensive,” he says. “We can sort through half a ton per hour. It’s a big-time saver and should add value to any coffee farmer in the area.”
That’s not all. “We will roast and package the coffee and will wholesale and retail coffee from our growers,” Burnett says. “We will also privately label for any other coffee companies that need supply.
“For our partner farmers who trust us to market their coffee, we will give a percentage of our value-added products to the farmers instead of just a buy/sell transaction of green coffee,” he continues. “This way, everyone wins, and the farmers can have a much better income.”
In the meantime, Burnett is hoping to partner with neighboring tribes to grow coffee as part of a diversified crop plan. “We will employ local workers and do agriculture and financial education with them,” he says. “This is a great time to invest in agriculture.”
He is looking forward to making his dream into a reality. “I would love to increase production to where thousands of coffee farmers in the area can benefit more from their hard work,” he says. “None of this is easy. But the best coffee is right here in Mindanao.
“I want our farmers to win awards for their coffee and have something they can be proud of. I would love to look back and say I was part of that,” he adds. “Seeing other people to be successful, especially kids or farmers you invest in, is the most rewarding thing.”
