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cess Srinagarindra and it simple means “Ninety”, the age of Before encouraging locals to grow coffee and maca-
the princess at the time of establishment. However, managing damia, experiments were needed as trees grow differently in
the Forest Economy Project was an enormous task, and Nawut different region. “Initially we hire locals to work on our coffee
received cooperation and support from 6 organizations, which and macadamia plantation. After they learnt the cultivation
are Siam Commercial Bank, Euarchukiati Company, The Crown skills, they are allowed to rent coffee saplings at 1 Baht a sapling
Property Bereau, Mitsui (Thailand), Bank of Asia, and Sumitomo to grow on their lands. However, DTDP supported half of the
Mitsui Banking Corporation. As a social enterprise business, sapling cost so the farmers pay half a Baht to give them a sense of
instead of taking the profit, all shareholders of Nawut Co., Ltd., ownership.” There are currently around 3,020,000 on Doi Tung,
agreed to use all of the company’s profit for the development of and around 1,620,000 are registered to DTDP while the rest sell
Doi Tung. the coffee to other buyers. “They might process it as parchment
coffee, green beans, or roasted coffee. You might have heard of
Cash Crop Phahi coffee. This particular received education from DTDP and
Coffee is one of many cash crops grown on Doi Tung. they are able to market their coffee themselves,” said Sirivung.
Initially, coffee wasn’t commercially grown like today because
the aim of the project was to create job and income that allow
locals to live harmoniously with the forest. “We worked hand in
hand with researchers to develop a leaf rust resistance variety.
The disease is caused by a fungus called Helmileia vastatrix and
it has been damaging Arabica for hundreds of years. The rust
can damage both new and old leaves, and both saplings and fully
grown trees. It starts with small 3-4 mm. dots under the leaves,
particularly old leaves. The dots will grow and turn orange. As
it progresses, orange powder, or the fungus’ spores, will appear
on the other side of the leaves. At this stage, the leaves will fall
and the branch dried off. We do our best to find rust-resistance
varieties and test if they can really resist leaf rust. There is a
continuous development to find the best variety,” Wipawa
Chuenchit, Coffee Quality Development Programme Manager,
explained.
Besides coffee variety development, DTDP pays atten-
tion to its coffee harvest and only ripe cherries are picked. Local
farmers did not understand the importance of bean sorting, but
they gradually understood after educations on coffee cultiva-
tion, harvest, and sorting were provided. Doi Tung coffees are
now defined by codes in order to identify their harvest time
and quality. With careful management, Doi Tung coffee is now
considered a unique GI (Geographical Indication) product.
“First of all, we rarely use any chemical. Ripe cher-
ries are hand-picked and we can control the cherry quality to a
certain level. The processing steps from cherries to coffee beans
are well managed and clean. We have quite an advantage on
quality control because we do every step ourselves,” Sirivung
emphasized on the attention to detail and the transparency of
every step.

Coffee and Macadamia
“Our initial approach was mostly trial and error. Coffee
and macadamia were grown together because thei said coffee
trees do well under shade. Normally, coffee would give its first
yield in 3 years and 7 years for macadamia, but they did not
produce as expected. After consulting the specialists, we learnt As for the quality, DTDP pays serious attention to the
that growing the together wasn’t such a good idea because they sorting process. “Farmers would learn how to identify and pick
fight for nutrients and they need different shade level,” Mr. only ripe cherries from us. Coffee cherries at the wash station
Sirivung Wongsavan, Coffee Farming and Processing Specialist, are then sorted in the floatation tank to separate unripe and
said before clarifying that coffee trees need a little shade so they defected cherries. Then the sunken cherries are sorted again by
should be separated from macadamia trees which provide full hand. We accept cherries which are 50% ripe or above, but it is
shade. best at over 80%,” Wipawa explained the cherry sorting process.
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