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DAVAO
CITY, Sept. 30 (PNA) -- Salt, that common food seasoning one finds in a
kitchen table, may just save the Philippine coconut industry from
further decline.
The
Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) has proven in several tests some
years back that salt (sodium chloride or common table salt) is the
cheapest and one of the most effective organic fertilizers for coconuts
readily available in the market.
Coconut
industry stakeholders in southern Mindanao are now urging the
government to promote massive salt farming nationwide in a strategic
move to increase salt production in the Philippines.
Industry
movers now participating in the Davao Industry Cluster Capacity
Enhancement Project (DICCEP) jointly sponsored by the region's
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) are pushing for massive salt production all
over the country to make salt readily available to all coconut farmers
as cheap organic fertilizer to boost more coconut production.
"Why
don't we put up salt beds nationwide to supply the salt as fertilizers
to all coconut farmers?" was one of the suggestions put across by the
region's coconut cluster group during the month-long DICCEP seminar
workshop in Davao.
This
was raised by PCA provincial officer Juvy Alayon and immediately
carried by the industry cluster group as a long-term strategy to boost
Mindanao's coconut production.
According
to PCA projections, the copra production in Mindanao is still very low
and expected to reach 7.5 million metric tons which is only about 55
percent of the projected demand of 13.7 million metric tons of copra
for the period covering 2004-2010.
The
PCA said Davao oil mills, for instance, are only producing 66 percent
of their total capacity as the region failed to cope with the supply
requirements for copra due to the region's low farm production and
shrinking coconut farm areas.
This
was confirmed by company spokesperson Adela Tamparong of Asia Pacific
Oil, one of the industry's stakeholders participating in the industry
cluster workshop.
"We've
lost our buyers from US and Europe. We're only exporting our coconut
oil to Korea, Japan and China," Tamparong said.
Low
yields of coconuts from many coconut plantations in Mindanao, has been
blamed for the alarming low copra production in this part of the
country.
Chlorine
deficiency, according to PCA, is widespread in many inland coconut
farms and salt is the "cheapest and best source of fertilizer for
coconut."
The
PCA said some 40 coconut producing areas in the country, including
Mindanao, are seriously affected by chlorine deficiency.
In
a series of tests made in 1991-1997, hundreds of selected coconut
farmers used salt to fertilize 170,000 hectares of coconut farms
nationwide, totaling 18 million coconut trees.
Final results revealed by the PCA show all the coconut farms fertilized with salt harvested 125 percent more coconuts.
Salt
production in the Philippines however, is still too small, estimated
around 160,000 to 220,000 metric tons annually, compared to the world's
top salt suppliers like the US (46 million metric tons), China (37
million mt), India (15 million mt), and Canada (14 million mt),
according to industry sources.
This limited salt production has forced the Philippines to import salt from India, Australia and Jordan.
Recently, the country imported 400,000 metric tons of salt from India to cope with the demands of various industries.
Most
of the salt productions in the country are concentrated in the salt
farms of Pangasinan, Bulacan and Mindoro Occidental.
Trade
Undersecretary Merly Cruz hopes to see a more robust growth of the
coconut industry and cited the JICA training seminar for enhancing the
capacity of stakeholders in the coconut industry to identify critical
problems and suggesting good solutions.
"Global
demand for coconuts is still strong as ever, because of its many
uses--oil from copra, activated carbon from its shells, coco fiber and
peat from its husks, health drink from its coco water, handicrafts from
its leaves and many others. Even the emergence of biodiesel will spur a
huge demand for more coconuts. It's significant to note that
suggestions and solutions at the DICCEP workshops are coming up to
boost the growth of this industry," Cruz said. (PNA) |
