MikeLigalig.com

DAR to put up mini-coconut processing plants in every ARC

      MANILA, Sept. 2 2002(PNA) --  In a move to revitalize the coconut
industry, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)vowed to construct
mini-coconut processing plants in every agrarian reform
community(ARC) in the country.

     This came to light as DAR inaugurated the Lawa Integrated
Coconut Processing Plant, a joint project of the DAR and the United
Nations Development Programme-Support Asset Reform thru the CARP for
the Development of Indigenous Community (UNDP-SARDIC).

     DAR Undersecretary for Field Operations Efren Moncupa said that
with the processing plant, farmers would be less dependent to a chain
of middlemen who normally dictate the farmgate price of copra, which
has remained stagnant through the years, leading some coconut farmers
 to shift to more profitable crops.

     The processing plant was a result of a 15-year research
spearheaded by former University of the Philippines-Los Banos (UPLB)
prof. Ernesto Lozada.

     His pet project made it to the 2 Lawa ARC through the effort of
development facilitator Edgar Silos, who learned about it after
attending one of Lozada's lecture in a seminar organized by the
DAR-UNDP-SARDIC.

     Moncupa said he would recommend to DAR Secretary Hernani
Braganza the replication of the project in other coconut-producing
ARCs to hasten the rehabilitation of the industry and free the
farmers from the clutches of middlemen.

     He said a mini-coconut processing plant in every
coconut-producing ARC would encourage farmers to give coconut farming
another try because of a promising future that goes with it since it
would be they, themselves, would direct the course of their own farm
business.

      Earlier, the Export Development Council (EDC), the country's
export planning and program overseer, reported that coconut
production in the Philippines declined from 11.8  million metric tons
in 1996 to 5.7 million in 2000 because farmers found coconut farming
less attractive due to low prices of copra.

     "Unless appropriate package of measures is taken to arrest its
decline, the demise of the coconut industry will result to a huge
displacement of over 40,000 farmer, traders and coco-based chemical
companies-- something the country can ill-afford," the EDC said.
(PNA)

fpv/MIR/rsm


Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=90168.0