“To reach our goal of 58 million trees, all we need is a seven million replanting rate for cacao trees per year, assuming a farmer has one hectare of farmland planted to 500 cacao trees,”
IT WILL TAKE 130,000 Filipino farmers planting seven million cacao trees every year to achieve thePhilippines’ goal of reaching 58 million cacao fruit-bearing trees that will produce 100,000 metric tons of cocoa by year 2020.
These were the estimates cited by Nic Richardson, chief of party for ACDI- VOCA, a private non-profit organization funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) during the Philippines Cacao Development and Investment Workshop held recently at the Waterfront Insular Hotel in this city.
ACDI-VOCA stands for the Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance which are actively involved with Filipino farmers’ cooperatives for the massive production of high-value crops in thePhilippines.
Richardsontold participants of the recent national cacao workshop here that these targets set up by ACDI-VOCA researchers are “achievable” as many limiting factors were considered in coming up with the projections and production estimates
“To reach our goal of 58 million trees, all we need is a seven million replanting rate for cacao trees per year, assuming a farmer has one hectare of farmland planted to 500 cacao trees,”Richardsonpointed out.
Calling it a “2020 challenge”, the ACDI-VOCA chief called out for firm commitments from various farmers’ groups and cooperatives during the recentDavaococoa workshop which was accepted by all the participants which came from various parts ofMindanao.
The US dollar value of 100,000 tons of cocoa assuming a modest world price of US$2500 per ton would be $250 million in export earnings for every shipment coming out of the Davaoport, according toRichardson.
Prevailing market price of cocoa in the global commodity futures market currently hovers around $3400 per metric ton, according to latest world prices quoted by Bloomberg.
PHILPRESS NEWS
Posted on May 3, 2011
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