IT'S about time we break our coconuts (a local idiom actually) and reassess its prospects versus oil palm. I am apprehensive the Philippines will lose and fail to recover the potential of coconut as a major dollar earner in the agriculture industry.
Of late, there is so much brouhaha over oil palm and I am worried the gloat over palm oil might drive away the government’s focus on the enormous potentials that the coconut industry can contribute to the farmers’ livelihood and the Philippine economy.
I too am scared about the lackadaisical interest of the government on the coco industry which started with the past Aquino administration. Officials then paid very little attention on the threat of kukulisap, which wrought havoc on coconut plantations all over the country. Its response was slapdash. It lacked the sense of urgency and true to its form and idiocy created another cabinet portfolio to address the problem.
As if that was not enough, former President Benigno Aquino III named Kiko Pangilinan to the position who unfortunately cannot even distinguish palay from cogon grass. But that scourge in the government bureaucracy is a thing of the past.
Recently, President Duterte appointed Davao City-based broadcaster Roque “King” Quimpan as member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA). Unknown to his colleague in the broadcast industry, Quimpan grew up and spent the best part of his years in his home province, Davao Oriental, which is the country’s biggest coconut producer. The province accounts for nearly one billion nuts annually despite the devastating typhoon that hit it in 2012.
Putting the likes of Quimpan in the PCA board is long overdue. Region 11 is the contributing the largest volume of coconuts in the Philippines and it stands to reason why Davao should have a seat in the board. After all Davao del Sur and Davao City have a combined harvest of more than 850-million nuts per year too in addition to Davao Oriental’s.
But what is it with coconut that it deserves a serious attention from the government today? Director Quimpan, known for his hard-hitting radio commentary, obviously made a serious review and assessment of the present state of the industry and the enormous potentials of coconut products which have emerged recently.
According to Quimpan, it used to be that coconut export product is only copra followed later by copra meal. During the Marcos era, serious researches were made to discover other potentials of coconut. “Sad to say, the Aquino administration scrapped the research and she and PCA gave the coco farmers and the industry nothing but lip service.”
These days, Quimpan explained, products derived from coconuts have huge demand in the export market. Coconut water which used to be discarded has become a favorite substitute for colas. Coconut shells, aside from being an excellent source of filters are now the favored sweetener additive in toothpaste and gums. The byproduct is called xylose. Tuba, a cheap health and slightly alcoholic drink is now the source of the most expensive sugar in the world and the supply is short. Coconut coir from coco husks is an excellent material to control soil erosion aside from being used for cushion. Of course there is the coconut virgin oil.
What we are saying and seeing here is that aside from coconut vegetable oil and copra that were imbibed in our minds, coconut products and byproducts are now part of various food products, agro and pharmaceutical chemicals, a wide range of beauty products and, you’ll be surprised, explosives!
With the reconstitution of the PCA Board and under the supervision of Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco, we are seeing a rebirth of the coconut industry. Director Quimpan revealed that there is actually a budget allocated for planting and replanting program of coconuts in an effort to expand and strengthen the industry. He said that he hates to admit it but it looked like PCA lost its energy to keep the project going. The program is moving too slow, the money intended for it goes back to the treasury and the budget year after year is merely reenacted.
“I heard reports that farmers are no longer interested planting and replanting coconuts and would rather shift to other cash crops among them oil palm. I do not blame them because they do not know the new potentials of the industry and the assistance which the government through PCA can extend to them,” Quimpan told me.
To perk up the sluggish growth of coconut industry, Quimpan visited the nooks of Paquibato District in Davao City unmindful of the presence of NPA (New People’s Army) guerillas. He told me that he met with the tribal chieftains in the area who heard of his radio interview where he detailed how the new PCA board will allocate funds for new growers.
The chieftains, he said wants to develop about 8,000 hectares of their Ancestral Domain. After presenting their Certificates of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADTs) Quimpan said that it is sufficient basis to qualify them for the program. Yesterday, he borrowed a helicopter and flew over the vast expanse of arable lands in Davao.
Quimpan detailed to me the strategies of how funds and planting materials will be allocated and managed but that will take up so much space in this column. The gestation period of the variety of coconuts PCA intends to propagate will be around four and a half year.
This is definitely shorter than the 7 to 10 year period of traditional variety but Quimpan said they have other mediating strategies to make farmer-beneficiaries productive in the intervening period.
It is awe inspiring that coconut, which is practically endemic in the Philippines, and the industry will finally get a much needed shot in the arm. Oil palm is good but the potentials of coconut are far better.
Nowadays coconut farms can be intercropped with cacao which is also fetching a big demand in the seller’s market.
Quimpan sees this thrive luxuriantly in his province. That cacao intercrop initiative was spearheaded by then Governor Corazon Malanyaon, who is now a Congressional Representative.
You cannot do that in oil palm plantations.
Quimpan, a coconut farmer’s son, knows his subject from where he stands. He is a sparkplug in PCA and the industry.
Absorbing lesson from President Duterte’s oft-repeated counsel, Quimpan stressed confidently: “I will actively, if not forcibly, assert what the coconut farmers deserve.”