Millions of coconut trees old and dying

SUNSET INDUSTRY? A farmer climbs down a coconut tree after harvesting “tuba,” a local alcoholic beverage, in his grove in Lanao del Norte. Many of the country’s coconut trees are dying, according to a government agency. EDWIN BACASMAS

The trees of life are on the brink of death.

Millions of coconut trees in the country are aging and dying, the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) said.

The country needs to replant a huge chunk of its coconut plantations as 44.8 million coconut trees are classified as old and senile, according to the PCA. Many are dying due to the stresses of weather and diseases, and should be cut to lumber, it said.

“About 27 percent of the total agricultural lands belong to coconut. We have plenty of senile trees, those over 60 years old. Of the 320 million coconut trees, 14 percent are old,” PCA Administrator Euclides Forbes said in an interview recently.

Mature coconut trees bear very few nuts or none at all, Forbes said. These trees, he said, should be cut and sold as coconut lumber.

The peak years of coconut trees are between seven and 25 years, when they bear between 40 and 65 nuts per year.

Many uses

The coconut is called the tree of life because practically every part of it is useful—from food, beverage and handicrafts to shelter, antisoil erosion technology and medicine.

Aside from copra, the Philippines is a major producer of coconut oil, copra meal, desiccated coconut, coco shell charcoal, activated carbon and coco chemicals.

Forbes said a major replanting of coconut trees was needed to make sure that the Philippines had enough supply to remain as the world’s leading copra producer.

He noted that the industry was still reeling from the effects of El Niño, a weather phenomenon.

The drought that the country suffered in 2009 and 2010 due to El Niño put coconut trees under stress and reduced their capacity to bear fruits, he said.

In the Philippines, the onset of El Niño usually means a lack of rainfall and fewer tropical cyclones. The Philippine agriculture sector took a beating during the last El Niño years, with major crops showing declines in production.

Cash incentives

The PCA has established a coconut planting project that gives financial incentives to successful farmers.

Under the scheme, a farmer would get P7 per seed nut sown and would get another P7 for every seed that grows to at least two feet tall within five months.

If the farmer is able to grow the seedling to about a meter high for about five months during the rainy season, he would get another P16.

Forbes said a farmer could earn up to P30 per seedling under the program.

Cash transfer program

The PCA is drafting a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Social Welfare and Development to include coconut farmers in the government’s conditional cash transfer program.

The program envisions to provide coconut farming families an additional income if they are able to grow and maintain coconut trees, Forbes said.

He said the average annual income of a coconut farmer was P30,000, far below the poverty threshold of P98,000.

Export value up

Because of the drought two years ago, yields from the plantations declined, affecting the country’s export volume.

Volume was reduced by 40.20 percent to 895,215.55 metric tons in the first seven months of 2011, according to the PCA.

Despite the drop in volume, the country’s coconut exports totaled $1.22 billion, a 34.74 percent jump compared with the $908.72 million earned in the same period last year.

Forbes said export value soared due to high global demand and prices in 2011. The average price of copra is $1,063.10 per MT, up from $754.79 in the same period last year.

Original posted: 11:22 pm | Sunday, September 4th, 2011