Focus on our domestic market

The coconut industry has been a very important concern in recent years due to various issues. First, the controversial issue on the recovery of the coco levies. Next, the destruction brought about by Typhoons “Pablo,” “Yolanda” and, most recently, “Glenda.” Also recent is the devastation of coconut plantations in Calabarzon areas and Basilan by coconut scale insects  or “cocolisap.” All these have greatly added to the continuing dilemma that the small coconut farmers are already facing—immense poverty. And what has been done by government about all these? Practically almost nil.

In the near future we may yet see another potential blow to the industry. A new product of synthetic biology or extreme genetic engineering called the Synthetically Modified Organisms (SMO). The subject SMOs are algae and yeast that produce lauric oil, which has now entered the international market as an ingredient for consumer products and food, as substitute for coconut and palm oil. With this new technology, some environmental organizations are concerned because the SMO is not regulated and might have harmful effects on health and the environment. Definitely, it would necessarily affect the coconut and palm oil industries as competing oil in the international market.

From the Coconut Industry Reform Movement Inc.’s point of view, coconut oil is merely one of the thousand and one products and by-products of the coconut and, therefore, cannot be compared and/or replaced. Palm oil has been the closest competition by far but its health and environmental benefits do not even come close to the coconut’s.

A focus on our own domestic market is important, and this we should do rather than focus on exporting 80 percent of our coconuts, which makes us totally dependent on the buyers’ price in the international market. A community-based approach like a village-level hub focusing on integrated processing of coconuts (not copra), its by-products and intercrops could present a solid opportunity for genuine progress and the development of the coconut industry—a development that should be for the ultimate benefit of the millions of small coconut farmers, where they become genuine stakeholders and not just mere raw material suppliers.

Helping the coconut communities climb up the value chain in coconut processing is a most potent tool to liberate small coconut farmers from copra and poverty; let alone from the international market, hence, enhancing our coconut industry through maximum use of our coconuts’ full potential. In such a manner, the 24-percent SMC shares from the coconut levy funds already declared public funds by the Supreme Court, could be of great help in reestablishing the coconut industry for the benefit of the small coconut farmers.

—VADESHNA SURIO,

Coconut Industry Reform (COIR) Movement Inc.,

coir_inc@yahoo.com