Coffee growers society to host festival

IN A bid to promote local consumption of coffee and improve production, the Central St Catherine Coffee Growers Co-operative Society Ltd, formed in 1957, will be hosting a coffee festival on Friday, December 2.

The event, to be held on the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) grounds in Vanity Fair, Linstead, St Catherine, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., will also seek to increase farmers' awareness of entities that can assist in enhancing their welfare.

Several coffee producers and other entities will showcase various products and by-products that can be made from locally produced coffee, as well as their products and services.

"There are several by-products of coffee ... the coffee ice cream, coffee liquor, coffee cake, coffee sauce, like chicken wings or barbecue chicken with coffee sauce. There is the espresso machine which can produce coffee with milk, coffee with ice, so many things," disclosed Gerald Bryan of the Coffee Industry Board (CIB), who is also assistant project coordinator, Competitive Coffee Enterprise Project (CCEP), operated between Guatemala and Jamaica.

Benefiting from ccep

Central St Catherine Coffee Growers Co-operative Society Ltd is one of three such organisations in Jamaica benefiting from the CCEP, funded by the Common Fund for Commodity (CFC) and the International Coffee Organization (ICO), launched in July, 2010. The others are the Frankfield Coffee and Cocoa Co-operative in Clarendon and the Cave Valley Multi-purpose Co-operative in St Ann.

Coffee fest, Bryan points out, is also a component of the three-year project, with the first held in Frankfield in October.

Vinroy Lindo, chairman of the 300-member Central St Catherine Co-operative, is happy for the CCEP, which he says has been stimulating the farmers to once again cultivate the crop, as well as increase production.

"A number of problems, including the decrease in the price for coffee and late payment, have affected us, but the project which gives us assistance with things like fertiliser, seedlings and grants is helping to re-energise us to get back into and increase production," said Lindo.

Change of heart

Bryan confirmed that some farmers who were reluctant to register with the co-operatives have been coming forward.

"We have seen an influx of farmers coming into the co-operatives. Some persons who were selling coffee outside the Co-operatives, when they heard about the objectives of the project, they said this is what they want," Bryan said.

Under the ICO/CFC programme, approximately 400 High Mountain Coffee farmers in total are expected to benefit from a loan and grant programme valued at US $1,187,500, or J$10 million. The money is being provided under a joint-venture agreement between the governments of Jamaica and Guatemala and is to be used to improve the competitiveness of the farmers, enhance the administrative capabilities of the selected cooperatives, and encourage greater consumption of Jamaican coffee.