The Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) has set aside an initial P500 million to set up shared processing facilities (SPFs) for qualified coconut farmer cooperatives over the course of the year.
Dionisio Alvindia, PhilMech executive director, said that SPFs are designed to produce value-added products from coconuts, including crude coconut oil, processed coconut oil, virgin coconut oil, desiccated coconut, coconut coir, and coconut sap.
“To qualify, target beneficiaries or project proponents should be duly registered coconut farmer cooperatives at the Cooperative Development Authority with more than 100 members, and have 5,000 coconut daily production,” Alvindia said.
Qualified farmer cooperatives will receive cost-free SPFs but requiring only the land where the facilities stand on as counterpart.
PhilMech also said the P500 million will be disbursed on per region basis broken down as P58.61 million for Calabarzon; P53.84 million for Northern Mindanao; P52.66 million for Zamboanga Peninsula; P51.74 million for Davao region; P50.15 million for Eastern Visayas; P43.65 million for Bicol Region; P40.84 million for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao; P32.51 million for Socsargen; P29.74 million for Caraga; P27.13 million for Western Visayas; P25.49 million for Mimaropa; P25.01 million for Central Visayas; and P8.63 million for the regions of Ilocos, Cagayan Valley and Central Luzon.
PhilMech acknowledged most coconut farmer cooperatives are not capable of producing value-added products and mostly engaged in producing copra sold to oil millers for the production of coconut oil.
The SPFs will allow coconut farmer cooperatives to produce the coconut oil themselves, source the raw materials from smaller farmer cooperatives and improve the efficiency of producing copra.
Most coconut producers merely throw away the coconut husk or shell that can in fact be used to produce various products including coco coir, geotextiles, mats, ropes, planting medium, among others.
PhilMech under the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act are mandated to establish SPFs using 10 percent or P7.5 billion of the P75-billion Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund.
The Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan also mandates the release of P5 billion in the first two years of the plan’s implementation.
As lead agricultural and fishery mechanization agency, PhilMech stands to gain from 14.72 million metric tons of husked coconut in thrown away in 2021, which was 1.5 percent higher than 14.49 million MT the Philippine Statistics Authority reported in 2020.
