Coco farmers skeptical on true beneficiaries of US investment

LUCENA City—If the Aquino administration is overjoyed by the prospect of new US investments on the coconut industry, the country’s farmers are skeptical and believe the true beneficiaries would be the multinationals and big local companies, a top official of the Coconut Industry Reform (COIR) Movement said.

It is doubtful if the investments would benefit the “impoverished millions of coconut farmers and their families that comprise a third of the Filipino population,” Joey Faustino, executive director of COIR Movement, said in a statement.

He admitted though that the renewed interest in “buko” juice is a positive development for the ailing coconut industry.

“First the coco fiber and now the coconut water. It’s a pity though that the realization has to come from the United States rather than from his (President Aquino) own country,” Faustino said.

Danny Carranza, secretary general of the farmers’ coalition Katarungan-Quezon, said over the phone that the industry really need investments to rehabilitate the ailing coconut industry but there must be assurance “the real beneficiaries would be the millions of small coconut farmers.”

Faustino renewed demands for the government to return the multibillion peso coconut levy to the farmers so it could be channeled to “upgrading of the coconut industry and the farmers that fuel the industry.”

“It seems that the much-touted private-public partnership of the Aquino administration is now being used as an added tool for big business interest to accumulate more profits to the detriment of the poor peasants,” said Jansept Geronimo, spokesperson for the secretariat of the Coalition of Coconut Farmers of Quezon.

The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) also raised alarm over the planned US investment in the coconut industry, which, it said, only aims to take control of about 3.3 million hectares of coconut lands.

KMP deputy secretary general Randall Echanis said in a statement that coconut lands are in danger of being controlled by agro-corporations in the United States.

“We fear that Aquino’s pasalubong would replicate the farmers’ experience in Mindanao where US-based agro-corporations like Del Monte and Dole now enjoy lifetime control over tens of thousands of hectares of lands,” Echanis said.

Echanis is referring to the country’s 50-year lease back agreement with said US firms that is renewable for another 25 years.

President Aquino announced that two US companies—Pepsi Cola and Vita Coco—would infuse $15-million fresh investments in the country’s coconut industry to meet the international demand for coconut water.

Echanis noted that “in danger of losing their rights to the lands are the 3.4 million farmer-families dependent on the country’s 3.37 million hectares of land devoted to coconut or 26 percent of the country’s total agricultural land.”

Echanis, citing figures from a study made by the Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan, said that in Quezon province, 204,000 coconut farmer-families are dependent on over 388,664 hectares of coconut lands.

He said the $15-million investment from the US is no match to the P150-billion coconut levy fund and the billions of pesos of agricultural funds being plundered by corrupt officials.

“The immediate return of the coco levy funds to genuine small coconut farmers is still among the solutions for the development of the coconut industry and not through onerous and one-sided investments,” Echanis said.