By MARVYN N. BENANING
(MBPC) MANILA, Philippines — The country expects to export 925,000 metric tons (MT) of coconut oil (CNO) this year as copra production perks up.This assessment was issued Wednesday by the United Coconut Association of the Philippines (UCAP).
UCAP executive director Yvonne Agustin said her group hopes to increase overseas sales since coconut trees have recovered from the biological stress brought about by El Niño in the first half of 2011.
Before the aberrant weather phenomenon hit the country, the industry enjoyed three successive years of good production.
“Right now, the demand for CNO remains flat since most of the foreign buyers still have plenty of stocks from last year. We expect this to pick up as production increase early 2012,” Agustin said.
In 2011, the CNO export industry failed to meet its forecast target of 900,000 MT.
UCAP’s initial estimates showed the country’s CNO exports dropped by 39 percent last year from the record 1.342 million MT in 2010.
Last year, exporters were able to ship out only 823,381 MT of CNO.
“The recovery that we expected in the second half of last year never came. Hopefully, 2012 will be a much better year for the coconut industry and we may see improvements in CNO production and shipment,” Agustin said.
For his part, Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) administrator Euclides Forbes noted that better results for the industry are afoot.
Domestic copra production may reach its peak within the next two months, he said.
The Philippines is still the world’s biggest CNO exporter, shipping out 80 percent of its production to foreign buyers, particularly those who prefer better quality vegetable oil for a variety of applications.
Meanwhile, fishermen are raging against a purported plan to import round scad or “galunggong” from two neighboring countries, tagging it as “economic sabotage.”
Fernando Hicap, chairman of the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas, stressed that instead of importing cheap fish from these countries, the country must export milkfish to them, as what the Alsons Aquaculture Corp. (AAC) did last December 2011.
AAC has actually clinched deals with retail outlets in Shenzhen, China to carry boneless milkfish that can be steamed, fried or grilled by consumers who are hankering for foreign food.
China is not known as a big consumer of milkfish and the initial shipment of nine tons was the first-ever by a Philippine aquaculture company to the country of 1.5 billion people.
Hicap blasted a purported plan of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) during the five-day UN sponsored Philippine Consultation and Workshop on UN-FAO Vision Guidelines for Small-Scale Fisheries held from Jan. 27 to 31 in Quezon City.
The Pamalakaya leader’s position was supported by representatives of fisherfolk groups in Northern Mindanao, Central Visayas, Panay and Guimaras Islands, Bicol, Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon and Ilocos who all described the plan as “a first-rate massacre of fishers rights.”
Hicap stressed that local fisherfolk cannot compete with foreign fishermen who enjoy subsidies, saying that Filipino anglers had been left to their own devices by a government that does not stem the rising costs of fuel.
Pamalakaya earlier dismissed as “outrageous” a plan purportedly hatched by BFAR to ban fishing in 10 areas out of 13 fishing grounds in the country due to “overexploitation” and “illegal fishing practices.”
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