THE Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA)-Northern Mindanao is urging the public to increase the use of coconut oil in the Philippines.
This was after the PCA recorded a continued decline of this year’s copra price as a result of the law of supply and demand in the global market.
Ralph Marcel Estaño, project development officer of PCA-Northern Mindanao, said that as of this moment, the agency has no control yet of of copra because since the beginning, the consumption of coconut oil is only few in the country.
“In fact, less than 10 percent ra ang atoang (only our) consumption sa (of) coconut oil dinhi sa (here in the) Philippines. So ga-rely ta karon sa export (we are relying now on exports),” said.
Despite the fact that Philippines is the number one exporter of coconut oil, this does not mean that it brought a huge impact in the world market.
“Kay sa (because in the) world market, 2 percent ra ang iyang ginahatag gina-supply nga (are the only supply given on) oil,” Estaño said.
He also explained that the supply of the other vegetable oils, particularly the palm oil and soy bean oil increased, their respective prices decreased as well.
Apart from the oversupply, Estaño added that the decrease in the price of palm oil is also due to the European Union stopping the promotion of palm oil.
“Ang European Union dili na kay na nila gina-promote ang palm oil kay dili daw siya maayo sa atoang environment (the European Union promotes palm oil instead of coconut oil because they said the latter is not environmentally friendly),” Estaño said.
Thus, in order to compete with the palm oil in the market, the price for coconut oil also declined.
This decline, he noted, that it affected oil millers in the country as copra traders would give a cheap price on coconut farmers.
Estaño said the PCA has started taking actions to help coconut farmers, one of which was the launching of the Coconut Festival to increase domestic utilization of buko by promoting juice as a cool and healthy drink during the hot summer months.
He added that the PCA is planning on doing a direct copra marketing wherein they will select a cooperative or organization in each provinces to consolidate copra.
They are coordinating with Agricultural Credit Policy Council so that coconut farmers will be given financial assistance, Estaño said.