TABUK CITY, Kalinga: Residents here expressed concern over the declining coffee industry in many villages and are seeking government intervention to revive this traditional source of income for many families. Caranguian added that recent findings of the Kalinga Coffee Council (KCC) have shown factors that caused coffee production to drop. Of the original 5,550-hectare coffee production area in 2014, he said, only 3,427 hectares are left for coffee production because of massive conversion of coffee lands into corn farms. PAO chief Domingo Bakilan, however, said they are expecting residents to go back to coffee production as soon as ongoing farm-to-market road (FMR) projects are completed. Bakilan added that two multi-million FMR projects funded by the World Bank under the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) is expected to resuscitate the province’s declining coffee industry.

Source: Manila Times January 23, 2017 12:40 UTC