New coco products seen to boost economy

MANILA, Philippines - The coconut industry – particularly its one emerging product, the virgin coconut oil (VCO) – may well be the linchpin of an economic stimulus program that can make the Philippines a top performing economy. “It may even be the ‘great rationalizer’ of an obviously garbled export-import equation,” said Teresa Santos, president of the Virgin Coconut Organization of the Philippines.

“The country’s manufacturing sector plays an ill-defined, if erratic role in our quest for growth, given that only the semiconductor industry has recently posted decent export figures. Otherwise, some industries seem to border on catatonia, languishing in the cellar with hohum performances. But even then, how can we hope to compete with giant tech hardware exporters, like South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and until recently, even Ireland,” Santos also noted.

“Until the US subprime sector-sparked 2008 global financial crash, in fact even until the region-wide 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the Philippines took the coconut industry for granted, with copra playing a steady item for export. Today, the government must view the coconut industry with its emerging by-products as the top candidate to give the Philippine economy its own unique competitive advantage over other economies,” Santos said.

Government statistics show that the country has 330 million coconut trees, planted on 60 percent of the country’s land, and grown by 3.5 million farmers. There was a time when the Philippines was supplying 59 percent of the world’s coconut export requirements.

“But the coconut industry is – should be – more than the copra, whose exports have been plunging by as much as 75 percent year-on-year. It is time to up the ante, so to say, by developing higher-value coconut products, such as VCO, for nutraceutical, cosmeceutical and pharmaceutical purposes, and geo-textiles for erosion control and other environmental uses. There are a thousand plus other uses for these coconut products, such as oil for cooking, water (buko juice), milk, sugar, flour, sports drink, bakeries, confectioneries, dried fruits, natural preservatives, snack food, baby food, special diet foods for weight, convalescence, diabetes, celiac disease and lactose intolerance, and, lately, anti-dengue skin protection. For instance, our dairy imports totalling $1 billion a year can be substantially substituted by ‘skim milk’ from the coconut, for children feeding, ice cream and other food products,” Santos disclosed.

The export potential for VCO and other coconut-based products is staggering, Santos said, even stressing that: “In light of the yearly multi-billion dollar expenditures for US alternative medicine and its dietary supplements industry – which find a palpable need for VCO and other coconut products – this is a ‘saltmine,’ so to say, worth mining, along with new Asian powerhouse economies like China and India.”

Meanwhile, Datu Abinasser Bataraza – a leader of Tausog minority (Indegenous People) based in Palawan and in Sulu (Mindanao) where coconuts are aplenty – would also buy the idea of making VCO a principal export product, especially “those produced by members of indigenous people like me.”

Bataraza – who recently conferred with Executive Director Silvino Q. Tejada of the Bureau of Soil and Water Management (BSWM), in connection with the launching of “Indigenous People Support Program” of Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala – even vowed to entice fellow indigenous people especially those living in depressed areas – “to engage in coconut production for additional or more profitable income.”