To create Philippine Coconut Industry Development Authority
ANGARA SEEKS TO REVIVE RP'S AILING COCONUT INDUSTRY

Sen. Edgardo J. Angara today called for the creation of the Philippine Coconut Industry Development Authority (PHILCIDA) in order to promote rapid, steady and continuous integrated development and growth of the coconut industry.

"In the past months, low copra selling price and production have tremendously affected our ailing coconut industry which employs more than twenty million Filipinos all over the country. Due to the recent glut of palm oil in the world market and typhoons that hit the country last year, our coconut farmers are in desperate straits," said Angara who chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food.

He added, "If this scenario continues the coconut industry will collapse. This calamity requires emergency action, in order to provide immediate and long-term relief to coconut farmers suffering from the effects of abnormally low prices of copra and other coconut products."

As of October 2008, coconut oil prices fell to new record low within the last two (2) years. According to the Department of Agriculture - Philippine Coconut Authority (DA - PCA), coconut oil and copra prices were greatly affected by the overall weak tone in vegetable oils, lingering uncertainties in global financial markets, steep decline in crude mineral oil prices, and lower Asian vegetable oils markets.

In Southern Tagalog, copra prices went down from Php 28.25 per kg in 2007 to Php 24.75 per kg in 2008. This rapid and steep decline in prices is worse in the Visayas and Mindanao regions, averaging more than Php 7.00 of decline within a year. Given this stark situation, farmers are no longer harvesting coconuts. More farmers cut trees and sell them as lumber, instead of harvesting the coconut.

"We should act now if we want to save our number one agricultural export earner," added Angara.

The coconut industry is the country's oldest and most strategic industry, contributing 1.14% of the total Gross Domestic Product amounting to US$ 760 million. The Philippines is a world leader in coconut exports, dominating 59% of the global market.

Statistics from DA - PCA indicated that areas planted with coconut covers 3.258 M hectares equivalent to 27% of total agricultural land. Sixty-eight (68) out of seventy-nine (79) provinces are considered coconut areas, representing 1,195 coconut municipalities.

Angara recently filed a bill which seeks to create a corporate body known as the Philippine Coconut Industry Development Authority (PHILCIDA, in order to promote the development and growth of the country's coconut industry. This is commensurate to the end goal of ensuring that the more than 20 million coconut farmers, farm workers, processors, lessees and tillers, and their families, shall become direct participants in, and beneficiaries of, such development and growth thereby increasing their income and uplifting their quality of life.