DTI, DA to form task force to revive coconut industry
MANILA – The Departments of Trade and Industry and Agriculture are creating a task force that will revive the country’s coconut industry in light of the strong global demand for coconut-based products.
DTI Secretary Gregory Domingo said that global demand for coconut-based products, including coconut oil, coco water, coco meal, husk, coir, among others, has grown dramatically.
But the country’s coconut production has dwindled because there has been replanting of coconuts to replace old coconuts, which are no longer productive or even cut into lumber.
“We are looking at forming a task force in DTI and DA to see how to make this industry grow in a big way,” Domingo said.
Domingo said that a third of the available lands in the country used to be planted with coconuts, but it has dwindled to less than 10 percent.
The Philippines is the world’s second largest producer of coconut products, after Indonesia. In 1989 it produced 11.8 million tons. In 1989, coconut products, coconut oil, copra (dried coconut), and desiccated coconut accounted for about 6.7 percent of Philippine exports.
About 25 percent of cultivated land was planted to coconut trees, and it is estimated that between 25 percent and 33 percent of the population was at least partly dependent on coconuts for their livelihood. Historically, the Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions of Luzon and the Eastern Visayas were the centers of coconut production. In the 1980s, Western Mindanao and Southern Mindanao also became important coconut-growing regions.
In the early 1990s, the average coconut farm was a medium-sized unit of less than four hectares.
Last year, Senator Edgardo Angara sought for the creation of the Philippine Coconut Industry Development Authority (PHILCIDA) in order to perk up the country’s ailing coconut industry.
As the country’s oldest and most strategic industry, contributing 1.14 percent of the total gross domestic product amounting to $760 million and dominating coconut exports with 59 percent market share.
Statistics from Department of Agriculture-Philippine Coconut Authority indicate that areas planted with coconut covers 3.258 million hectares, equivalent to 27 percent of total agricultural land. Sixty-eight out of 79 provinces are considered coconut areas, representing 1,195 coconut municipalities.
The creation of PHILCIDA is aimed at promoting the development and growth of the country’s coconut industry.
This is commensurate to the end-goal of ensuring that the more than 20 million coconut farmers, farm workers, processors, lessees and tillers, and their families, shall become direct participants in, and beneficiaries of, such development and growth, thereby increasing their income and uplifting their quality of life.
“More than twenty million Filipinos all over the country are affected by the shrinking coconut industry mainly due to recent cuts in coconut oil and copra prices in the market. Our coconut farmers are in desperate straits due to the coupling effects of recent glut of palm oil in the world market and typhoons that hit the country last year,” Angara said.
“If this scenario continues, the coconut industry will collapse. Thus, we should focus our efforts towards saving our number one export earner. This can be initially done by providing a conducive policy atmosphere which will enable the revival of our coco industry.”
In 2008, coconut oil prices fell to new record low within the last two years. According to the DA-PCA, coconut oil and copra prices were greatly affected by the overall weak tone in vegetable oils, lingering uncertainties in global financial markets, steep decline in crude mineral oil prices, and lower Asian vegetable oils markets.*PNA
