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ILOILO City – The coconut industry in Western Visayas has potentials to become a sunshine industry, but it has first to contend with threats.
Philippine Coconut Industry-6 officer-in-charge Francis Fegarido said in a press conference that the coconut farmers in the region have been thriving after the calamities that destroyed some two million trees.
“We are only able to process about 125,000 trees because trees replanted after calamities take about two years to recover,” Fegarido said.
He added that the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) has programs for crop rehabilitation and protection as it is battling with diseases and human factor.
“There are the coco pests, like the cocolisap and the coco leaf beetle, and the massive conversion of coconut plantations into residential and commercial areas,” Fegarido said.
“But on top of it, is the chainsaw – which means the illegal cutting of coco trees,” he added.
Fegarido said it would take about 5 to 10 years to recover the loss of a cut coconut tree.
Here in the region, coconut trees are cut and used as scaffolding in constructions, according to the PCA, as they are cheaper and more accessible.
Some of the reasons, according to law, coconut trees can be cut when they are no longer economically productive, when 60 years old, as in the case of tall trees, when the trees would cause hazard to life and properties, and, when destroyed by calamities.
Despite the threats, PCA looks forward to the promising potentials of the coco industry, in terms of copra production, which shares 80 percent of production, and the rest shared by the flourishing “street buco” and the virgin coconut oil.
“The flourishing local consumption of coconut products and the increasing rise of firms engaged in handicrafts, will surely bring the coco industry shining through,” Fegarido said. (With a report from PIA/PN)
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