Coffee Supply Resilience, Import Dependence, and Local Agricultural Upgrading in the Philippines: Secondary-Data Evidence from Kalinga for Sustainable Rural Development

Objectives: This study examined Philippine coffee supply-resilience proxies from 2010 to 2022 and used Kalinga Province as a strategic provincial case to compare national external-supply exposure with local production-capacity decline. The analysis was descriptive and did not test a causal relationship between Kalinga’s decline and national import dependence. Method: A quantitative secondary-data design was used. Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data on coffee production, area planted/harvested, and bearing trees were merged with UN Comtrade HS 0901 import and export quantities. To resolve a product-form discontinuity, national production for 2010-2021 was standardized from dried berries to green coffee bean (GCB) equivalent using the PSA-adopted 0.50 conversion factor, while 2022 annual GCB output was reconstructed from official quarterly estimates. Supply resilience was operationalized narrowly through domestic production capacity, import dependence, and domestic self-sufficiency. Kalinga’s 2017 production outlier was independently checked against a PSA provincial publication, and a sensitivity analysis assessed whether the long-run decline persisted when 2017 was excluded. Findings: On a consistent GCB-equivalent basis, Philippine domestic coffee production declined from 47,268.01 metric tons in 2010 to 29,957.00 metric tons in 2022, a 36.62% decrease. Import dependence increased from 36.74% to 44.39%, while domestic self-sufficiency declined from 63.59% to 55.75%. The initially apparent sharp national production collapse between 2021 and 2022 disappeared after product-form harmonization; comparable output declined by only 1.14% over those two years. In Kalinga, production decreased from 3,803.00 to 473.68 metric tons, yield declined from 1.094 to 0.171 metric tons per hectare, and the province’s share of Cordillera Administrative Region coffee production fell from 67.81% to 28.31%. Novelty: The study contributes a province-linked reading of Philippine coffee supply vulnerability by jointly examining national external-supply exposure and local production-capacity deterioration without treating their co-occurrence as proof of a direct relationship. It also demonstrates the importance of harmonizing official agricultural product forms before computing supply indicators and translates the verified descriptive evidence into diagnostic priorities and possible intervention domains that require local assessment.