The Ministry of Food Production is to spend approximately $26 million to eradicate red palm mite infestation and red ring disease, after which 10,000 acres of coconut will be replanted over six years as it moves to revitalise the coconut industry.
At a media briefing yesterday at the ministry’s Project Co-ordinating Unit (PCU) building, Serpentine Road, St Clair, the ministry along with the St Patrick Coconut Growers Co-operative Society, represented by its chairman, Pranesh Maharaj, signalled its intent to revitalise an industry described as being in decline. The ministry will receive assistance from the Indian High Commission and India’s Coconut Development Board.
Permanent secretary Joan Hannibal-Phillips said the ministry had appointed a coconut industry transformation committee to oversee red ring disease eradication programme in T&T in the next fiscal year. She added after the eradication programme, 10,000 acres would be replanted over the next six years and the project was expected to generate 100 million nuts a year.
“This will re-establish the economic platform in rural communities, thereby enabling long-term sustainable employment,” she said. She added that coconuts would be used to “produce higher value-added products such as packaged coconut water, virgin coconut oil, desiccated coconut milk and coconut chips.” Evans Ramkhelawan, the ministry’s deputy director of agricultural services, said the industry had declined from 54,000 acres of coconut cultivation in 1940, to 32,000 in 1962.
“Currently, there are 12,000 acres under production, with 12 large farms accounting for 92 per cent of this acreage,” he said. He said the demand for coconut water had surpassed the local supply and T&T has had to rely on imported coconut water from Guyana to meet the demand.
He identified factors such as praedial larceny, the demand for vegetable oils rather than coconut oil, the abandonment of large acreages of coconuts and pests and disease as reasons for the industry's decline. On visits to fields in Manzanilla, Mayaro and the south-west peninsula it was observed that the fields were more than 70 years old and showed little or no signs of maintenance and red ring disease appeared to be the cause of death of the young palms, Ramkhelawan said.