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By Conrad M. Cariño, Senior Desk Editor
Biofuel’s gain, particularly biodiesel, is
copra’s loss.
Demand for biodiesel from coconut will cause a
shortage of about 100,000 metric tons (MT) of copra in 2009,
according to the administrator of the Philippine Coconut Authority.
Oscar Garin said Friday the country must
produce 2.7 million metric tons of copra, the dried meat of coconut,
in 2009 to meet the expected demand for coconut methyl ester, the
biofuel component from coconut oil.
This will impact on the country’s export of
traditional coconut oil, which is processed for use as cooking oil
and an ingredient in the processing of food, pharmaceutical products
and cosmetics.
But meeting the 2.7-million metric ton
production for 2009 will be a tough call, Garin admitted, because
copra production has been on a decline since 2005 with a production
of 2.6 million metric tons, 2.5 million metric tons in 2006, and 2.3
million metric tons in 2007.
This year, the coconut agency is projecting a
2.43-million metric ton production in copra, with a program
encouraging the use of table salt as fertilizer contributing to the
increased output.
“Production declined in 2006 because of the
typhoons [hitting the country]. But this year’s absence of a dry
season favors coconut production,” Garin said.
The coconut agency sees copra production
hitting 2.6 million metric tons in 2009.
“Where will we get that 100,000 MT shortfall?
That’s the problem,” Garin said.
To increase copra production in the next few
years, the coconut agency is alloting P1.98 billion this year and
P2.59 billion next year. The propagation of salt as fertilizer is a
major program of the agency to increase copra production.
Studies by the coconut agency show that the use
of common table salt can increase copra production from 20 percent
to 25 percent.
Garin said their ambitious program to plant an
additional 16 million coconut trees nationwide in the next three
years will impact on copra production in 2009, because it takes up
to five years for a coconut tree to be productive from the day it is
planted.
The country today has more than 324 million
coconut trees planted to more than three million hectares of lands.
The high demand for copra for biodiesel,
however, will benefit coconut farmers because they will have an
alternative market for their produce, a member of the Farmer
Sectoral Council said. The council is a consultative body of farmers
under the National Anti-Poverty Council.
Also, a source from the biotechnology industry,
told The Manila Times that any shortfall in copra production for
cooking oil can be easily met by domestic malunggay production.
The source said malunggay oil has almost the
same profile as sunflower oil, which is free of unhealthy
trans-fatty acids. The oil from malunggay is extracted from its
dried seeds.
This early, there are thousands of
entrepreneurial farmers and landowners who are already growing
malunggay for its oil, and because the tree can be productive one to
two years from planting even without fertilizer or pesticide use.
Rice shortage looms
The Philippines, apparently, is also bracing
for a shortage of rice—the Filipinos’ staple. It seems that this
early, rice-rich neighbors, among them Vietnam, are looking at the
local market as possible export destinations.
On Friday, Vietnamese enterprises have won a
bid to sell 185,000 tons of rice to the Philippines, according to
the Vietnamese newspaper Youth.
Accordingly, 12,500 tons of 5-percent broken
rice priced at $745 per ton, 12,500 tons of 15-percent broken rice
at $738 per ton, and 160,000 tons of 25-percent broken rice, will be
delivered from March to late May.
Vietnam still targets to export 4 million tons
to 4.5 million tons of rice in 2008, despite damage to its rice crop
by the recent prolonged spell of cold weather in its northern
region.
Vietnam is the world’s second-biggest rice
exporter after Thailand. It exported 4.5 million tons of rice worth
nearly $1.5 billion in 2007, mainly to the Philippines, Malaysia,
Cuba, Indonesia and Japan. The 2007 figure is down 3.1 percent in
volume, but up 13.9 percent in value against 2006, according to the
country’s General Statistics Office.
To avert the possible rice crisis in the
Philippines, Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. has called on the
Department of Agriculture and the National Food Authority to crack
down on traders believed to behind alleged rice cartels.
“The poor sector stands to be affected
severely by the food shortage [as a result of] the diminishing
importation of rice,” Villar said in a statement Thursday.
“It is unfortunate that while agriculture is
considered the lynchpin of the country’s economy and hosts one of
the world’s most reputable rice research institutions, the
Philippines is surprisingly the world’s biggest importer of
rice,” he said. Villar was referring to the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna, south of Manila.
The Senate said threats to the steady supply of
rice in the country “can be attributed to water shortage, global
warming, and decreasing rice lands, aggravated by the operation of
rice cartels.”
He suggested that “an iron fist must also be
used against the rice cartels in averting the looming rice shortage
and drastic price increases of the commodity.”
Villar said he had learned that Vietnam can
only supply half of the 1.5 million tons that the Philippines needs.
He added that he will file a resolution in the
Senate urging the Committee on Agriculture and Food and the
blue-ribbon committee to conduct an inquiry into the supposedly
impending rice shortage and the reported rice cartels.
--With Xinhua
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