INSTEAD of rejoicing over the renewed global interest on coconuts, the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) on Saturday expressed fears that the country’s coconut industry may soon be controlled by agro-corporations from the United States.
The group said 3.3 million hectares of coconut land may end up in the hands of foreign investors as a result of the $15-million investment bagged by President Benigno Aquino 3rd from his recent US visit.
The group was alarmed by reports that two US companies, Pepsi Cola and Vita Coco, want to invest P15 million in the country’s coconut industry to meet the growing international demand for coco water.
KMP deputy secretary general Randall Echanis called on the President “to divulge the terms” of the investments fearing that this could lead to “one-sided and onerous land lease deals” between the US and Philippines.
“We fear that Aquino’s pasalubong would replicate farmers’ experience in Mindanao where US-based agro-corporations, like Del Monte and Dole, now enjoys lifetime control over tens of thousands of hectares of lands,” Echanis said. “These land lease schemes has turned farmers into mere low wage-earning agricultural workers instead of being empowered owner-cultivators. These schemes undermined the rights of farmers over their lands.”
He said if government really aims to help farmers, it should stop corruption and work for the release of the coco-levy funds that coco farmers have long been fighting for.
“The $15 million investment from the US is no match to the P150 billion coco levy funds and the billions of pesos of agricultural funds being plundered by corrupt officials. The immediate return of the coco levy funds to genuine small coconut farmers is still among the solutions for the development of the coconut industry and not through onerous and one-sided investments,” Echanis said.
