9/5/2023 0 Comments Punakea coconut farm procing![]() That makes it hard for farmers like Veraya to compete in markets like the Philippines (annual per capita income $3,300) and Indonesia ($4,150), where most customers don't have the luxury of paying a premium for vegan dairy alternatives or virgin coconut oil. Palm oil, which is manufactured by multinational giants, is significantly cheaper than locally produced coconut oil. During that same period, production of palm oil in Indonesia has grown by 65 percent. Imports of palm oil by the Philippines have grown by more than 300 percent since 2011. Palm oil manufacturers, struggling with declining demand in the West, are flooding these poorer nations with their cheap products. The Philippines and Indonesia are also two of the world's five largest consumers of coconut oil. That's because while the future of the coconut-a key ingredient in environmentally friendly fake meat and dairy products-in the West appears bright, cultivators in Southeast Asia are facing more immediate pressures in traditional markets. A liter of coconut water costs between $3 to $10 in New York City, depending on whether it's organic, raw, single-source or conventionally produced – options that barely existed as recently as 2015.īut independent small-scale farmers like Veraya who produce 95 percent of coconuts in the Philippines and 98 percent in Indonesia typically earn less than $2 a day, down from $4 in 2015, says Jun Pascua, director of the National Peasants Movement, a Filipino association that represents coconut farmers. In the U.S., coconut water sales have grown by nearly 300 percent since 2013, and are expected to increase a further 200 percent, to more than $2.5 billion by 2024. ![]() ![]() Yet the countries' coconut farmers are facing a widening gap between the value of their products in the West and what they earn.ĭemand for virgin coconut oil in Europe has risen by double digits yearly since 2010. Between the two of them, the Philippines and Indonesia produce almost 70 percent of the world's exported coconuts. Philippines, undated.Īt a time the demand for coconut products is exploding in the developed world, an OZY investigation from the Philippines and Indonesia finds that the 8 million small-scale farmers growing the fruit in the world's two biggest coconut-exporting countries are – far from benefiting – actually hurting. Workers gathering organic, fair-trade coconuts at Anabelle Tan Reynoso's farm in Saraiya, Philippines. “That's what most farmers are crying about, the low prices of coconuts." when you see how much work we put in, but we only get paid so little,” Veraya says. ![]() His hairline is receding, and his dreams are fading: Veraya is unable to save enough to replace tin sheets with a permanent roof for his two-room home in the municipality of General Nakar, where he, his wife and their two young children live without electricity or running water. But he makes only 15 Philippine pesos, or 40 cents, for the hours-long work it takes to produce a kilo of copra, the dried kernel of the fruit from which coconut oil is extracted. Veraya painstakingly chops up hundreds of coconuts every day and heats them over an open, outdoor fire, sweating profusely and breathing in smoke. Yet for 29-year-old Ricky Veraya, a coconut farmer in the northern Philippines island of Luzon, that boom in interest has a bitter taste his income has shrunk by half over the past five years. The coconut is seen as a healthy, environmentally friendly alternative to palm oil, a common ingredient in everything from shampoos to cookies and frozen desserts. Go to any trendy health food store or restaurant in London, San Francisco or New York, and you'll find organic raw coconut water and vegan ice cream made with coconut products.
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