COTABATO CITY—The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao will produce quality cassava to supply the raw material requirements of the P2-billion Nestlé Protomalt Processing Plant in Lipa, Batangas for one of its health food drinks.
In a statement, the ARMM’s Regional Board of Investments on Friday said the region was a “strong contender” for Nestle’s potential demand for cassava.
Lawyer Ishak Mastura, PROI-ARMM chairman and managing head, said ARMM tops most other regions in producing the root crop. In 2016, ARMM recorded the highest production level of cassava in the country at 423,650 MT, which constituted 55.6 percent of the country’s total cassava output.
Nestlé has said its new protomalt processing plant will use barley and cassava as major raw materials for the production of the malt extract.
Malabang in Lanao del Sur is home to the country’s top producers of cassava. Established in 1928, the Matling Industrial and Commercial Corp. runs one of the country’s biggest cassava plantations, the oldest cassava flour mill.
Nestlé chairman and CEO Jacques Reber has since announced in an online statement the ongoing construction of the MILO malt plant at the Nestlé Lipa factory.
“We have discussed with the ARMM economic cluster agencies that the ARMM has a great economic opportunity with the planned establishment of the Nestlé protomalt plant, whose main ingredient is cassava, because we are the country’s biggest producer of cassava,” said Mastura.
ARMM Regional Gov. Mujiv Hataman said that appropriate agricultural support, the government can even help lower the cost of production in the so-called “scale economy,” by which cassava farmers would be able to “increase their production profit.”
“While cassava will initially be imported from Thailand, Nestlé is now actively looking at using cassava sourced from farmers in Philippines to create shared value, a move that is expected to help improve livelihood, further boost agriculture, and uplift the cassava industry in the country,” the Nestlé statement said.
“The company has started to qualify cassava farmers in Mindanao, and hopes that more farmers will take up cassava planting to supply Nestlé’s requirements in the long term.”
