Coconut body draws up survival plan

APCC plans pilot project for integrated coconut development and processing

In the wake of destruction of thousands of coconut trees in last year's tsunami, the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) has planned a pilot project for integrated coconut development and processing. The project envisages setting up of field schools for farmers in Indonesia and India.

The pilot project would be prepared as a farmer-private entrepreneurs-public partnership programme, after consultations with experts involving Unescap, FAO, UNDP and ADB and representatives from tsunami affected countries. After discussions, the project would develop viable strategies for different regions.

The project would be implemented in Aceh in Indonesia and another region, from one of the five countries, where coconut production was affected due to the tsunami disaster, according to P Rethinam, executive director, APCC, Jakarta.

In his article in the recent issue of 'Indian Coconut Journal,' Rethinam said the project, which may cost about $40 lakh, would have the components of rehabilitation, productivity increase, pests and disease management, farm land processing, product diversification and marketing as well as setting up of filed schools, as a capacity building activity.

To organise the consultative group meeting, APCC needed donor agencies' support for an amount of $60,000, Rethinam added. The December 26 tsunami had destroyed more coconut plantations in Indonesia and India, compared to countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maldives and Malaysia, said Rethinam.

In Indonesia, plantations in Nanggroe Aceh Darusalam were severely affected. The province had 1,16,642 hectare of coconut plantations, covering 19 districts, with annual production of 78,442 tonne of copra, with 1.78 lakh smallholders depending on coconut.

Though only an area of 19,000 hectare of coconut plantations were actually destroyed by the tsunami, reports revealed that it had "really affected" the entire area in some way or the other.

The greatest damage to coconut occurred in Aceh Besar, where 5,537 hectare owned by 5,496 farmer families were destroyed and in Aceh Jaya another 2,480 hectare of coconut plantations owned by 1,530 families were destroyed, he said.

In india, the coconut plantations in Andaman and Nicobar islands were worst affected, followed by those in Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Tiruvarur, Thanjavur, Kanyakumari, Tuticorin and Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry in the east coast and in Kollam and Alappuzha districts of Kerala in the west coast.

Though correct statistics were not available, about 6,000 hectare of coconut gardens were reportedly affected in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, Rethinam said, adding coconut palms were not affected that much in Sri Lanka.

Existing coconut palms shoved symptoms such as yellowing and browning of leaves, drying of lower whirl, button shedding and immature nut fall, the article said.

All other crops like annuals and biennials like banana, papaya, pineapple and perennial tree crops like cocoa, arecanut, clove, nutmeg, black pepper, fruit trees were destroyed in most of the areas leaving a lot of debris, Rethinam said.

On anticipated loss due to loss of coconut plantations, said about 0.1 million tonne of coconut oil production was estimated to be reduced annually due to button shedding, nut fall and lower productivity.

There would be considerable reduction in raw materials like coconut and husk for the processing industries, which may reduce the availability of raw material to the processing units, which in turn would reduce the existing employment rate and also the income to the growers, processors and the labourers depending on the crop.

Coconut, 'the tree need to be rehabilitated in the affected coastal regions urgently but systematically and for this there should be short term and long term strategies to rehabilitate the coconut based coastal ecosystem, which is fragile, Rethinam said.

Short term strategies include rehabilitation of area, replanting of adequate number of quality planting materials, raising of seedlings, while long term strategies include setting up mangroves whereever possible to withstand Tsunami, rejuvenate trees to enhance productivity.