TAAL VOLCANO: Coffee Industry Could Take Years to Recover

A local agency said that the coffee farms in the province of Batangas and Cavite would take more than a year to recover after the volcano erupted on Sunday.

Rene Tongson, the director of the Philippine Coffee Board, said that the total damages caused by Taal’s wrath are around ₱600 million ($32 million), a way lesser figure compared to the previous estimate of ₱74 million ($1.5 million) by the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Tongson told CNN the Philippines that the plants were covered with ashes, and he suspected that most have probably died since they cannot perform photosynthesis.

#TaalEruption2020: Fate of barako coffee amid Taal’s unrest https://t.co/sDo55hwVGt pic.twitter.com/UVX26PS2rR — CNN Philippines (@cnnphilippines) January 17, 2020

DA Secretary William Dar previously said that farmers can regrow another set of coffee plants by trimming branches and generate new blooms. However, since the field was blanketed with heavy ashfall, Tongson said that it is not possible for the moment.

Possible Scarcity

Batangas is also known as the home of liberica coffee, which is locally known as “Barako”, a Tagalog term associated with tough and highly sexual men. But they also produce robusta, excelsa, and arabica coffee beans.

Tongson said that it will probably take for the Philippines to export coffee again since farms have only able to produce 40 million kilograms to satiate the 135 million kilograms of the local demand annually.

Christina Recabar, a local coffee supplier from Rosario, Batangas, also expressed her concern about the quality of the beans. She feared that the powdered form might contain impurities such as ashfall from the volcano.

The Philippine Coffee Board is currently surveying the farms to assess the situation and create a rehabilitation plan, said Tongson.

The government previously announced that they will offer a five-year loan worth of ₱25,000 (around $500) with zero interest. They also pledged 5,000 coffee plants for the affected growers.

Since a Franciscan monk brought the first coffee tree in the mid-18th century, Batangas and its neighboring provinces in the Calabarzon region have been producing coffee beans. About 15 percent of the country’s yields came from Batangas and Cavite alone.

According to the Philippine Coffee Board, many farms are situated in the towns of Ibaan, Lemery, San Jose, Taal, and Tanauan — all of which are on the 16-kilometer radius of Taal Volcano.

Probe on Phivolcs

Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. urged the government to file a case against the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology due to the lack of warning which endangered many residents.

In defense, Phivolcs Director Renato Solidum told a local radio station that the agency has been coordinating with the local government of Batangas since November 2019 to prepare them for the impending eruption.

Solidum also added that Taal has been under alert level 1 for almost 10 months before the steam blast on Sunday.

Earl Victor L. Rosero of Inquirer, a local news agency, supported Solidum’s claims and said that the congressional investigation is “merely a waste of time” and will just create an unnecessary distraction.

He also suggested that rather than wasting resources and time, approve the Department of Disaster Resilience, and invest in Phivolcs and on research.

ALSO READ: Taal Shows ‘Weak’ Emission, but ‘Intense’ Tremors