By Manny Piñol
The government-owned CIIF-Oil Management Group, which operates four Coconut Oil Mills all over the country, has agreed to increase its mill-gate buying price to P20 per kilo.
Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) President Lino Trinidad announced the increase yesterday during the consultation held by the Department of Agriculture (DA) with coconut farmers and stakeholders at the DA Central Office in Quezon City.
The P20 per kilo mill-gate price is still P5 lower than what the DA had earlier asked but Trinidad said it is the best they could offer given the very low market prices of coconut oil in the world market.
During the same consultations, the DA announced that it is ready to extend loans to organised coconut farmers’ group which they could use in buying the produce of their members and trucks to haul the copra to the oil mills.
Coconut farmers said the high transport cost and the distance between the farms and the oils mill discourage them from selling directly to the mills.
The DA also offered a maximum of P50,000 loan under the Production Loan Easy Access for coconut farmers to be used in starting livelihood activities to tide them over while the buying price of copra is low.
The DA Secretary directed the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) to identify and validate all coconut farmers associations and cooperatives to facilitate the granting of the loans.
The consultation was initiated by the Coconut Industry Sector of the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries under its Chairman Romeo Royandoyan.
During the consultations, the farmers also said that one of the main problems of coconut farmers in the countryside is their indebtedness to local copra traders.
“This is what actually prevents farmers from selling their produce directly to the Oil Mills,” a farmer leader from Quezon Province said.
Chairman Royandoyan said the issue will be discussed in the formulation of the Coconut Industry Road Map which is being initiated by the DA through the PCA.
The Philippine Coconut Industry, the second biggest in the world, has failed to craft an Industry Road Map which would guide the sector in ensuring better income for the farmers.
Shortly after the transfer of the PCA to the DA in September of 2018, the Agriculture Department directed the PCA Board to allocate P10-M for the crafting of the road map for the coconut industry.
The Philippine Coconut Industry has been mainly involved in copra and coconut oil production, missing out on the opportunities offered by other high value products out of coconut.
(Photos of yesterday’s consultations with Coconut Industry stakeholders taken by Alan Jay Jacalan, DA-RAFID)
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