THE PH COCOINDUSTRY

QUICK FACTS ON

COCONUT AREAS• 68 out of 79 provinces; 1,195 out of 1,634 cities & municipalities

• 26% of the total agricultural land is coconut plantation, equivalent to 3.562 million hectares

PRODUCTION & EARNINGS• 340 million bearing coconut trees producing an average of 15.2 billion nuts per year

• 23% of world’s coconut production

• 3rd largest exporter of coconut in the world, with 59% of all exports

• Earn US$ 935million from coconut oil in 2005-2009.

• Coconut oil is the country’s TOP agricultural commodity export.

COCONUT AREAS

COCO FARMERS’ SITUATION• Small coconut farmers earn only P3 per nut

• 41% out of more than half a million coconut farm house holds are poor

• 240,424 coconut farm families live in poverty, earning below P16,842 per year

• Income of copra-based farmers is around P10,400/ha/year. Minus inputs and labor cost, copra farmers take home only P6,765/ha/year

• At current incomes, a copra farmer must own at least 10 hectares of land to get out of poverty

• Underemployment among coconut farmers, whose work is largely informal, unpaid and subsistence-based, is at 65.9%. High poverty incidence among coconut growers highly correlates with grave conditions of underemployment in the country.

• The provinces in Calabarzon are plagued with coconut insect infestation

• Coconut farmers have yet to recover from the onslaught of strong typhoons Pablo and Yolanda, which hit coconut areas in Visayas and Mindanao

Source: 2009 FIES-LFS, PCA, DA-BAS