THE government’s bid to modernize the local coconut sector fell victim to politics as 91.22 percent of the P755 million available funding in 2022 for the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan (CFIDP) and the Coconut Hybridization Project (CHP) was not used and had to be returned to the National Treasury.
Based on the 2022 audit of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), only P66.305 million or a measly 8.78 percent of available funding was spent during the year, setting back projections on increasing production to raise the income of coconut farmers.
The balance of P688 million reverted to National Treasury.
The PCA management said the slow pace was attributable to several factors, the foremost of which was the reconstitution of the entire PCA Board because of the change in national leadership when the Marcos administration took over government reins.
It said the corporate order delegating the authority to approve memoranda of agreement to the PCA administrator was only approved on October 5, 2022 during the first meeting of the reconstituted Board.
Moreover, according to the PCA, the activities in the CHP are sequential in nature as one component is a pre-requisite of another, hence, the approval of the MOA took a long time.
Other than the production of hybrid seed nut which hit 374,073 or 35,827 above the target of 338,827, the PCSA missed the rest of its targets in the first-year implementation of the CHP.
Of the 10,676 hectares identified for precision farming fertilization, the agency only covered 3,540 hectares or 33 percent.
Out of the targeted 1.527 million palms to be fertilized, PCA only finished 495,472 or 32.45 percent.
For the CHP workforce, the plan to train 2,517 personnel only showed 202 trainees or eight percent of the target.
“The targets for the establishment of communal nursery, precision farming (nutrient support), professionalizing the CHP workforce, development of seed farm in government lands, strategic planting/replanting, and the support to hybridization were not met, with accomplishment rates ranging from 8.03 per cent to 48.86 per cent only,” the COA pointed out.
