Wednesday, July 13, 2005
P2.8M-village coconut mill to alleviate poverty
MEMBERS of the Lawa Workers Multi-Purpose Cooperative established the first village-level coconut oil processing mill worth P2.870 million in Barangay Lawa, Don Marcelino, Davao del Sur to help alleviate poverty in the municipality.
The cooperative built the Lawa Integrated Coconut Processing Plant with the assistance of the United Nations Development Program-Support for Agrarian Reform Development for Indigenous Community, Land Bank of the Philippines, and Department of Land Reform.
The plant can process 10,000 nuts or the equivalent of 2,250 kilos of copra per sixteen hours (two shift) operation into 1,140 kilos or 1,239 liters of refined, bleached and deodorized cooking oil as the main product and 680 kg. copra cake daily as one of its by-products.
The plant will also engage in the improvement of the cooperative's present operation of charcoal making. The activity aims to increase charcoal recovery and reduce exposure to charcoal kilos smoke hazards, which is possible through the replacement of the current drum kiln with the Pag-asa kiln.
The project, which is in consonance with the 10-Point Agenda of the President particularly the poverty alleviation program, has 106 agrarian reform beneficiaries, 95 percent of whom belongs to the B'laan-Manobo tribe.
The cooperative is the owner of a 300-hectare coconut farm given under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform program.
The farm produces an average of 3.9 million nuts per year. Before the existence of the plant, the cooperative used drying facilities which were able to process about 998,000 tons of copra which reaped an annual profit of roughly P632,000.
With the presence of the processing plant, the economic benefits are expected to increase and address the problem of low farm incomes from the coconut products due to the volatile and fluctuating prices of copra. (PIA)
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 13, 2005 issue)
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