THE agriculture ministry and the island’s coconut growers are hoping that a combined $159-million effort to push value-added products and research lethal yellowing disease will help rescue the ailing industry.

Between 2002 and 2003, the island’s coconut production fell by 40.9 million nuts. The decrease has been blamed on the effects of the disease as and low profitability – caused by high production costs, low selling prices and low yields.

The European Union-financed Common Fund for Commodities recently provided $152.5 million (US$2.5M) to help the island’s coconut board with research that will include identifying new resistant varieties of lethal yellowing.

The board will work with the University of the West Indies (UWI), the Scientific Research Council (SRC) and the University of Florida on the project. The funds became available about three weeks ago.

In addition, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has provided $6.2 million for a the Value-added Coconut Products Cottage Industry Project.

Addressing the annual general meeting of the Coconut Growers’ Association in Kingston on Saturday, state minister for agriculture, Errol Ennis, appealed to the board and farmers to pursue, and push for, more research to be done in the area of enhancing the industry’s productivity and profitability. Critical areas of focus, he said, were:

. the control of pests and diseases;

. the determination of optimum coconut-based farming systems;

. improvements in the value-added component of the industry;

. propagation and nursery management; as well as

. the use of the coconut palm in agro-forestry and intercropping.

Meanwhile the $6.2 million value-added project, he said, seeks to boost farmers’ profits by:

. exposing bottlers of coconut water to the FAO’s improved method of treating their product. This will extend shelf-life up to six months compared to the current maximum of five days;

. addressing economic losses resulting from spoilage by providing training in good manufacturing practices for small-scale bottlers of coconut water, as well as for producers of value-added coconut products; and

. establishing a factory at the coconut board’s office in Kingston to facilitate the production of these value-added products in collaboration with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA). This will include the training of 50 persons to efficiently manufacture gizzada, grater cake, coconut drops, coconut jam and dry coconut for use in pastries and sweets.

“RADA is also assisting the board to distribute seeds to farmers under two planting programmes targetting non-traditional coconut growing areas, free of lethal yellowing, as well as in traditional areas devastated by the disease,” said Ennis.

He added that RADA was also facilitating the board’s efforts to update growers on research findings.

Giving a global perspective of the coconut industry’s future, Ennis said the recent controversy linking the consumption of coconut oil with saturated fats and heart disease – added to other pressing problems such as pests and diseases, aged palms and low yields – were being overcome by new developments.

Factors that had helped boost the budding market for additional by-products from the coconut, he said, included new uses of the coconut in food and nutrition, the nutraceutical industry, the fact that is seen as a cleansing agent and source of protein, as well as more recent scientific findings which reject the claim that coconut oil is linked to heart disease.