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Expertise
NESTLÉ Experimental & Demo Farm trains coffee farmers for better yield
August 2008
AS makers of the leading coffee brand NESCAFE, NESTLÉ makes sure that local coffee farmers are armed with the best knowledge available when it comes to coffee.
Quality products, after all, can only be as good as the raw materials they are made of. The Nestlé Experimental & Demonstration Farm (NEDF) in Tagum, Davao del Sur provides technologically-advanced farming tools & methods to coffee farmers to ensure that only the high quality coffee beans goes into every cup of NESCAFE.
The NEDF operates based on four main objectives: expose farmers to the best coffee farming technology from NESTLÉ; provide a venue for the training of these farmers on the proper technologies of coffee production; propagate good coffee planting materials for distribution to farmers, and; share viable farming techniques to increase productivity while lowering production cost.
From research to application
After research has been conducted by the company’s R&D Center in Tours, France, NESTLÉ cascades the results to its demo farm for experimentation for local feasibility & practicum work.
The NEDF then develops appropriate coffee farming technologies which are then disseminated to coffee farmers, managers of coffee plantations and even students through various carefully mapped out training programs.
Knowing that education is a powerful tool in technology transfer, Nestlé has drawn up three regular training programs designed for specific purposes and three kinds of trainees: 1.) farmers coffee production technology training, 2.) coffee specialist training program and 3.) On – the – Job training that focuses on the complete technology of coffee growing, from the origin of coffee, it’s botany, adaptability, elevation, soil and water requirement, nutrition harvesting up to post-harvest techniques and finally the production of the green coffee beans.
Relevant facilities
The training at the NEDF forms a large and very important part of NESCAFE’s quest for the best raw materials for use in the production of NESCAFÉ coffee. That is why NESTLÉ provided the site with the equipment and facilities needed for classroom instruction and practical application of the knowledge given to trainees.
Inside this sprawling 16 hectare complex, a host of facilities can be found, such as demonstration plots, an administration building, a training center, a warehouse and even a “Mother Plant Garden” and nursery that produces rooted cuttings of the Robusta variety of coffee that are supplied to farmers who want to plant coffee.
Lectures at the training center
The NEDF’s Training Center is where agricultural training programs are conducted. Here, coffee farmers and their families, as well as students, learn the basics via a training program designed by Nestlé agronomists. The lectures are reinforced by practical demonstrations, where Nestle agronomists use demo plots to show trainees how the techniques earlier learned are applied.
Trainees also get to perform hands-on exercises, allowing them to actually use farming techniques such as the Coffee Normal Cropping System, the Coffee Block Cropping System, the Coffee Strip Cropping System, and the Coffee-Based Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT) Project. They also learn how to harvest coffee the proper way.
Another facility that aids in the training’s practical application is the farm’s nursery, a 2,500 square meter area houses plants for cultivation.
As a storage facility
The NEDF also has a warehouse that serves as the storage area for farm supplies and tools and the office of the farm’s staff. The various processes that happen after harvest are conducted here, from floating –when they segregate the good berries from the bad to drying and de-hulling or when they strip the dried cherries of their pulp or skin to ready them for the next process.
Sometimes, the warehouse also serves as a small-scale buying station for nearby municipalities.
With the help of the NEDF, NESCAFÉ is able to deliver its many promises to its stakeholders—for coffee farmers to improve their yield and income, future coffee plantation managers and students to be better equipped for future opportunities and us, coffee drinkers an assurance of quality coffee we deserve. |
