Coconuts making a comeback

Replanting and rehabilitation will boost global output after disease and natural disasters

KUALA LUMPUR— Whether as “water” in Pepsi’s Naked drink range, as “milk” in Starbucks’ coffees, as shampoo in L’Oréal’s products or even as a patty in Beyond Meat’s vegan burgers, coconut has captured new markets with a growing reputation as a healthy, natural product.

The popularity has been a boon for prices, with the cost of coconut oil alone more than doubling since its low in 2013. But it hasn’t translated into increased production as diseases, natural disasters and aging plantations kept global output stagnant over the past decade.

That’s about to change, thanks to a program of replantings and rehabilitation across the tropics. Output of copra, the dried coconut meat that’s used to make coconut oil, will jump more than 30 per cent in the decade to 2026 as yields in the biggest growers rebound, according to a July 10 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

“The international market is not only buying the oil, which they purify into cooking oil,” Danilo D. Valdez, the managing director of trading company Raco Commodities Phils. Inc., said. “They also have found out uses for virgin coconut oil, coconut water and those kinds of derivatives products from coconut which are very good for people, that they’ve positioned for an organic and healthy lifestyle.”

The key to the coconut’s popularity comes from the many products that a single nut produces. One package offers a high-energy food, a versatile oil, a nutrient-rich water and coir — a fibre that’s used to make rope and bedding — all contained in a watertight package.

Its versatility has led to the coconut being dubbed the “Swiss Army Knife” of plants and has made it a staple product in many countries. It remains so important in the Philippines, the biggest producer of copra, that the FAO estimates a quarter of its 100 million people are dependent on industries associated with it.

“There’s great demand in foreign countries like South Korea and Canada,” said Carlito D Villamayor, a coconut farmer in the Philippine province of Quezon. “Now China is ordering from us, so we have to increase our production.”

Investment in production will lift copra output by 1.1 million tonnes by 2026, according to the OECD and FAO. Plantation yields in Southeast Asia will climb 15 per cent in that time. That follows a decline of more than 5 per cent in the12 years to 2016 due to aged palms, pests and diseases, which effectively neutered the one million hectares of new coconut plantings in the past decade, according to the FAO report.