Friday, August 22, 2008 Roperos: Bio-fuel By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
WITH the full implementation of the bio-fuels blend next year, the Department of Energy has issued a circular implementing the standards for bio-diesel and bio-fuels.
Under the circular, “only coco-methyl ester conforming to Philippine National Standards/Energy Department QSOO2:2007 shall be manufactured, sold, offered for sale, dispensed, or introduced into commerce as bio-diesel in the Philippines. Oil companies will be outlets for such local oil commodity.”
For the first time, coconut oil produced according to a set standard of quality and able to obtain quality certification may be used by the oil outlets for “blending with the base diesel.”
The Bio-fuels Act of 2006 has mandated the use of bio-fuels, such as bio-diesel and boil-ethanol to reduce dependence on imported fuels with due regard to the protection of public health, the environment and natural ecosystems.
But while that may help stabilize, or even lower the current price of diesel once the law takes effect next year, I wonder if there is an equally important consideration on the effect the law would have on our coconut industry, coconut production and the effect it would have on household consumption of coconut oil and coconut products.
It is certain that bio-diesel would cause much reduction in the supply of coconut products that would be used for human consumption, especially if its use for bio-diesel would have higher returns to producers. There must be a difference in prices of coco oil for human use and for the industrial bio-diesel.
However, there is a potential resurgence in interest on the coconut with the developing “bio-fuel” industry. The domestic economy has reportedly attracted P34 billion in investments that necessitated “planting crops for bio-fuel feedstock,” according to the Department of Agriculture.
The proposed investment in bio-fuel envisions the development of 725,300 hectares of land. The bio-fuel feedstock crop includes “sugarcane, cassava, jatropha, corn, palm oil and coconut.
But that really, is not the point we wish to bring out here.
What we are interested in is how the millions of small coconut farmers will eventually be benefited from their long deprivation of the industry that they nurtured for years since the time they were made to support the industrial ventures of the late Ferdinand Marcos’ cronies, who made billions of pesos out of the coconut industry, exploiting the hapless farmers in the process.
