Civet coffee controversy: Caged cats or the wild and the free?

Before Alamid Coffee founder Vie Reyes began selling locally produced civet coffee in 2003, the Asian palm civet known locally as alamid or musang have been regarded by some forest-dwelling communities as pests that destroy crops and eat poultry.

 

Ten years after Alamid Coffee entered the Philippine market, civet cats are now considered valuable animals capable of yielding a sizeable profit for entrepreneurs in the civet coffee industry.

 

The Asian palm civet has become such a high-value animal that a number of households and civet coffee manufacturers in the country have taken to  keeping the cats in cages so they can continuously collect the precious droppings to create the most expensive coffee in the world.

 

Last month, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific issued an appeal to coffee lovers worldwide to stop patronizing civet coffee after reports surfaced that some civet coffee producers in the Philippines and Indonesia are caging civet cats for profit.

 

A short video clip released by PETA on October 23 showed a civet cat exhibiting what appears to be “neurotic behavior” while in captivity at a civet coffee farm in Davao City. The group claimed the less than two-minute video consisted of an undercover footage of civet cats in Dizon’s Mt. Apo Civet Coffee Farm, where the animals were pacing incessantly inside wooden cages.

 

Such restlessness indicate they were going insane from boredom and depression for being confined in a cramped space, PETA noted.

 

Aroma and taste

 

Over the last 20 years, civet coffee has been in high demand in several Western countries despite being a byproduct of animal waste. The beans are highly prized for their aroma and taste – said to be brought by the enzymes that mix with the coffee berries passing through the cat’s digestive tract.

 

The beans collected by pickers are washed, dried and roasted before they are packaged and sold for $200 to $400 a kilo in overseas markets.

 

Reyes said she and her husband thought of introducing civet coffee to the Philippine market after discovering the existence of civet cats by accident as she and her husband were doing conservation work for sugar palm trees used for producing kaong vinegar, a product the couple has been selling in a family-owned enterprise since 2002.

 

“Since Indonesia has its Kopi Luwak (civet cat coffee), I thought the Philippines can also produce its own civet coffee because we have civet cats too,” she said in an interview with GMA News Online.

 

Despite the market’s initial lukewarm response, the Reyes couple’s Alamid Coffee turned out to be a hit among coffee lovers who were looking for a unique drink and curious customers who just wanted to have a sip of the priciest coffee in the world.

 

Reyes said Alamid Coffee’s success came as a surprise to her because she was uncertain  if a market for civet coffee in the Philippines existed.

 

“Alamid Coffee suddenly became our best seller. Our income from selling civet coffee gave us the means to expand our business,” Reyes said.

 

While sales of Alamid Coffee continues to be brisk until now, Reyes admits her business has been affected not only by PETA’s campaign to boycott civet coffee, but also by  the proliferation of retailers selling civet coffee from caged cats.

 

In contrast to coffee producers who can easily pick civet cat droppings from underneath the animal’s cage, the Reyeses source the beans from select suppliers who need to scour the forest for the precious excrement.

 

The labor-intensive process of sourcing coffee beans in the wild is one of the reasons why a kilo of Coffee Alamid retails for as much as P25,000, pricier than some local brands selling civet coffee beans for P13,000 per kilo.

 

Reyes said her company’s strict protocols for gathering beans in the wild has caused her to lose several suppliers after she discovered them caging the cats to make easy money.

 

“In the last five years, we haven’t opened new sites to harvest beans because we are very strict when it comes to ensuring the beans are sourced from the wild. Over the years, we’ve had to let go of several barangays, kasi nandadaya na sila,” she said.

 

At present, majority of Coffee Alamid’s beans are sourced from open harvesting sites in Mt. Malarayat in Lipa, Batangas and Mt. Matutum in South Cotabato.

 

'Treated properly'

 

While Mt. Apo Civet Coffee owner Sonny Dizon has admitted to caging civet cats for coffee, he insisted in an interview last month that the animals live under "sustainable conditions" and are well taken cared of.

 

Dizon noted that harvesting coffee beans from civet cats is his company's way of making use of the animals considered as pests by local farmers. His privately-owned Crocodile Park in Davao City is the official rescue center for civets caught in the wild.

 

"My hands are tied since people and concerned groups turn over the cats to us. Farmers complain the cats eat their chickens but they don't want to kill them. The cats end up staying with us. While it's true that the animals are caged, we make sure they are treated properly," he said.

 

In a separate e-mail message, Dizon said that if he is guilty of abusing civet cats in the farm, his park would not have been awarded as the best wildlife conservation park in the 2013 Golden Globe Annual Awards for Business Excellence.

 

"[If it's true ] that we maltreat animals... why then did we get an award for conservation?" he added.

 

'Not all brands... are equal'

 

While the Philippine Coffee Board (PCB), a private-sector group which counts Mt. Apo Civet Coffee as a member, has stopped short of stating its support for Dizon, PCB president Nicky Matti admitted in an interview that he understands the situation the businessman is in.

 

“It’s not that we’re supporting [the caging of civet cats], but Mr. Dizon has already come up with his own explanation for doing it. As for PETA, they can say whatever they want to say, but we cannot really do anything about it since we’re not a policing body,” he said.

 

Instead of calling for an outright ban on the consumption of civet coffee, Reyes said PETA can help stamp out cruelty against civets by pushing for a means to certify the source of civet coffee.

 

PETA earlier said the problem of civet cruelty is made worse by some companies that label beans as "wild-sourced" even if the beans actually came from animals in cages.

 

“As PETA aggressively pushes for the 'ban caged civet coffee campaign', one solution [that] came to mind just now is for [the group] to push for and actively take  part in the [campaign to certify] civet coffee. [A] total ban will just put to waste a worthwhile objective which was primarily initiated for forest conservation and wildlife protection.     

 

It will be unfair for people in the forests to lose a lucrative living which is not destructive and actually is a livelihood that blends with the natural environment and habitat of the civets and the coffee trees in the forests,” Reyes said in a separate e-mail interview.

 

In the absence of a certification method for civet coffee, Reyes said it is up to coffee drinkers to choose whether or not they should patronize brands that make use of caged civet cats for coffee.

 

She urged customers of civet coffee to know more about the coffee they drink so they would know its source.

 

“Not all brands of civet coffee are equal. If you don’t trust the source of the coffee, it’s better if you don’t buy it,” she said. – VS, GMA News