Propelling Agricultural Development with Chocolate
After successfully hosting the National Abaca Summit last year, SLSU played host again to another summit: the Cacao Industry Regional Summit, held on August 3-4, 2016 at the SLSU main campus. The summit centered mainly in promoting cacao as a crop that can spur region-wide agricultural development in the process of meeting the goal of a 100,000 metric ton production which is the country's nationwide target as the Philippines prepares itself to supply a projected 1 million metric ton shortfall in global cacao supply by 2020. Of the country's 100,000 metric ton goal, Region 8 commits to deliver 5,000 metric tons.
The summit was a congregation of line agency delegations, regional directors, instructors from the state universities of the region, and farmers and cacao farmer associations which composed about a third of the participants. The main guest of the summit was Department of Agriculture (DA) Assistant Secretary for the Visayas Atty. Hansel Didulo who came in place of DA Secretary Emmanuel Piñol.
The biggest argument for raising cacao region wide was simply its plain profitability. “In the last 100 years, there was never an instance when the demand for cacao went down,” explained DTI-Region XI Assistant Regional Director Edwin Banquerigo during a presentation on the potentials of cacao. “There is no other crop where seedling distribution by various government agencies is on a massive scale, and in the four years that I have been handling cacao, it is the only commodity that defies the law of supply and demand.”
While the Davao region is the biggest producer of cacao in the country, Region 8’s large area of available land, geographical proximity to Cebu and Manila, and the unusually quick recovery after Typhoon Yolanda were identified as the unique factors giving the Region a competitive advantage over locations.
The summit was planned in February this year together with the regional directors of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), DA, Commission on Higher Education, Department of Trade and Industry, National Economic and Development Authority and representatives from the province of Leyte and Southern Leyte. The hosting of the summit was the given to SLSU President Prose Ivy Yepes.
But the idea of holding a regional cacao summit was first brought up in one of the Board Meetings of the University of Eastern Philippines (UEP), where the potential of cacao as a way to trigger development in the agriculture sector of the region was discussed, after which CHED Commissioner Maria Cynthia Rose Bautista pointed out how universities in the region can help by holding a summit, subsequently paving the way for the involvement of state universities in the summit.
Assistant Secretary for the Visayas Hansel Didulo delivers the keynote message during the summit
True to the style of DA Secretary Emmanuel Piñol who favors face-to-face forums with farmers, the summit had two forums which farmers made use of to express grievances in the lapses of government service delivery, perceived anomalies in benefit distribution, seek clarification on land use arrangements and membership to local cacao industry councils, and appeal for help in the maintenance of farm inputs to hectares of fruit bearing cacao.
The summit was co-hosted by both SLSU and UEP, with the summit manpower coming from SLSU and the financial support coming from UEP, the So. Leyte Governor's office, the So. Leyte Vice Governor's office, and the municipality of Sogod. The big sponsor of the summit however, was the Technology Application and Promotion Institute of the DOST.
Summit presenters answer questions in the second open forum of the summit.
Local government agency representatives, state university representatives and farmers team up in a brainstorming session to produce workshop outputs to enhance the Philippines Cacao Industry Cluster Upscaling Strategies for 2015—2020.