Coco entrepreneurs, not farmers

I am a lawyer by profession, but a coco farmer by passion, and our family has been a coco planter since the 1920s in Zamboanga City. I feel the need to add to the discussion about the coconut industry.

First and foremost, I disagree with the idea of the PCA allocating P11 billion of our precious coco levy funds for purposes of a replanting, fertilization and hybridization program. By doing so, we continue the traditional industry direction of exporting coco oil to the world market, perpetuating our predicament as an agricultural nation.

For the past 30 years, palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia has continued to outbid and outperform the coconut oil in export by simply underselling or cutting the price of cooking oil. In short, we are in a losing position against palm oil. Let us accept the fact that talo tayo dito – we lose here.

Instead I suggest that we use the P11-billion coconut levy fund for national industry and manufacture of coconut-based products. We use the fund to establish factories that use coconut to produce coco fibers, coco peat, coco water, coco cream, coco milk, coco soap, coco meal, coco starch and activated charcoal. Then we export these products instead of exporting coco oil as a raw material then afterwards importing from industrialized countries the products manufactured from coco oil – soap, toothpaste, creams, biscuits, ice cream, etc.

By investing in factories, the price of coconut will go up to P30-40 per copra equivalent, thus directly improving the lives of coconut farmers and they will no longer need incentives to keep on planting coconuts. We will increase employment, increase revenue and decrease importation, ultimately improving our trade balance. This will also give rise to secondary cottage industries in the communities where such factories will rise.

The PCA should stop thinking with a farmer’s mindset of planting and harvesting coconuts, but should start thinking as an industrialist and entrepreneur of coco-based producers for local consumption and international export.

This is the way forward. Stop competing with palm oil. Stop exporting ordinary coco oil. Let us start making the Philippines an exporter of finished coco-based products. Let us use our money to build and operate coco-based factories in the countryside. — Juan Climaco P. Elago ii, Zamboanga City