3 cacao roadmaps to be integrated into 1

By Cheneen R. Capon
The Department of Agriculture (DA) will take the lead in the harmonization of three roadmaps into one for the development of the cacao industry in the country.
Edwin Banquerigo, national cacao industry cluster coordinator of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said the integrated roadmap will be presented during the National Interagency Convergence in Cebu slated on May 25.
“The existing roadmaps for the cacao were crafted by the DA, Board of Investments, and private stakeholders of the industry,” Banquerigo, who is also the assistant regional director for DTI 11, told reporters recently.
Banquerigo said the roadmap will focus on the expansion of areas planted to cacao and improvement of farm productivity.
He said the integrated roadmap will allow the synchronization of programs for cacao industry implemented by different national government agencies.
Currently, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) and the DA have its own respective programs for cacao seedling dispersal.
The national government has been encouraging farmers to plant cacao in the last five years as the potential of cacao a in the global market arena for cacao grow stronger.
Increasing the nation’s cacao production will allow the Philippines to have a sizeable portion in the multi-billion dollar global industry of cacao which will face supply shortage by 2018, as projected by those in the private sector as a result of increasing demand.
The Philippines is one of the exporters of cacao, but with only 0.2 percent share. More than 90 percent of the country’s supply is produced in Mindanao, with Davao as the topnotcher.
Last year, the region only produced 12,000 metric tons of cacao beans from 21,000 hectares of areas planted to cacao per record by the Cacao Industry Development Association of Mindanao (CIDAMI).