Farmers, land key for coconut industry’s expansion, says CIB chairman
THE LACK of operational expansion is one of the primary challenges facing Jamaica’s coconut industry.
Christopher Gentles, chairman of the Coconut Industry Board (CIB), expressed this sentiment at Monday’s opening ceremony of a five-day regional coconut workshop on ‘Sustainable and Resilient Coconut Production within a Changing Climate’. The workshop was organised by the CIB and supported by the Caribbean Agricultural Research Development Institute (CARDI) and the International Trade Centre (ITC).
Gentles further stated that many commodities, like coconut, were “struggling to regain their former glory [in] production”.
“The coconut i ndustry was a dynamic [one]. It had several processing facilities and it employed thousands of people. It provided jobs, it facilitated education, it was in a total different social structure and the issue and the challenge for us today ... is to facilitate the growth of the sector, to exceed what it used to be,” Gentles said.
He, therefore, called on the relevant authorities to take a more recent census as this was the “baseline upon which investments are made”.
The CIB has estimated that approximately 16,000 acres are being used for coconut cultivation currently.
Gentles said that was not sufficient.
According to the board’s 78th annual report, the number of hectares available in coconuts as of December 2019 was 16,542, with the total population of coconut trees being 3.6 million.
Gentles further called for a boost of the sector.
“An investment to the tune of 30,000 acres in production alone ... would be to the tune of around J$6 million ... and it’s not really a huge amount of money for an industry,” he said.
He continued that a further investment of around J$1 billion was also necessary for factories and processing plants in the industry.
“To our vision [the coconut industry] wouldn’t be like an industry in the past where we had one monopolistic producer. We see a future where there are several plants, there are cottage plants, there are cooperatives, there are small bottlers, mid-size bottlers and large bottlers and we see as well that the coconut industry board and affiliated private sector entities will have substantial production facilities which the coconut board will facilitate the growth of,” Gentles explained.
NEED MORE FARMERS
He continued that the CIB would require more small farmers within the sector to ensure a more robust coconut enterprise.
According to him, presently there are about 500 registered farmers. The CIB, he said, has been working with between 500 and 800 farmers over the years, and the number needed to increase to at least 1,000 or 1,500.
“We need about 300 medium size farmers with 11 to 100 acres. I believe, if I’m not mistaken, we have less than 40 (farmers) in that category and we need a couple of large farmers and maybe some multinational investments,” Gentles said.
While noting the many health benefits of coconut, commonly referred to as the ‘golden plant’ or ‘tree of life’, by farmers, Gentles said that the main objective was to boost Jamaica’s output of value-added products and open up a channel for “high value investments” in the areas that are globally competitive.
Gentles further stated that there were challenges being faced to produce and sell skin and beauty products as well.
The workshop is being conducted as part of the second phase of the European Unionfunded Alliances for Coconut Industry Development, Expansion and Enhanced Support in the Caribbean ( ACIDES) regional project.
Targeting all industry stakeholders, the workshop will be facilitating technical sessions on climate-smart production practices and coconut field management, as well as the establishment of coconut seed gardens, hybridisation techniques, practices, and processes, the processing for value addition processing, and ecotourism.