Make use of coconuts

 PRODUCERS of coconut in Papua New Guinea have been exploiting just five per cent of the total potential of coconut compared to the more industrious Asian countries, Asia-Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) executive director Uron Salum says.

Speaking on FM 100’s talkback programme recently, Salum said that India produces an incredible 12,000 tonnes of coconut products, while the next tier, which includes PNG, produce only 6000 tonnes and downwards.

“Twelve million households in India depend on coconuts. The average household may own up to 40 coconut trees – but because of the high yielding varieties they plant and the high value products they focus on – they can make US$40 (K120) per tree per day which equates to about K4000 per month,” Salum said. 

“The average Papua New Guinean family easily owns more coconut trees – or at least has sufficient customary land to grow 100 coconut trees.” 

He said that the nutritional value of coconut, its medicinal properties, its money-making opportunities from its diverse and variety of products including traditional ones like copra, coconut oil, copra 

meat and desiccated coconut; and the increasing consumer demand for non-traditional products like virgin coconut oil, coconut water, coconut milk/cream/powder, coconut shell charcoal/activated carbon for fuel and coconut fibre production make it an immensely valuable tree crop that has been sadly neglected. 

He said PNG, at all levels, must rise up, replant coconuts, seek out the simple, easily available technologies and catch up with other leading APCC countries.

APCC is an independent regional intergovernmental organisation established in 1960 by the United Nations Economic Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. 

Its members today include Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu in the Pacific region; India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Philippines in the Asian region and two associate members – Kenya in Africa and Jamaica in the Caribbean. 

Collectively, the 18 member countries account for 85-90 per cent of world coconut.