The Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) is pushing for a project that will capacitate farmers’ cooperatives to produce fruit or vegetable-blended coco juice using raw materials sourced from their own farms or other cooperatives.
The agency said most farms today just throw away coconut water in the process of producing copra.
“This project, which was a PhilMech initiative in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, will have a long-term benefit on coconut farmers who can exploit the potential of coconut water to boost their incomes…,” said Dionisio Alvindia, PhilMech director, in a statement.
PhilMech said there is a village-level coconut water processing technology and system as well as a greenhouse solar tunnel dryer that coconut farmers’ cooperatives can easily adopt.
Alvindia said the coconut water processing technology can process up to 2,000 nuts for approximately 2,000 bottles of 350 milliliters of coconut water per day as the dryer can dry coconut meat using heat from the sun while producing white copra and protecting the produce from contamination.
“There is also a growing market for products that are more healthy options compared to other types of beverages widely available in the market and among these are products made from coconut water. So, we at PHilMech also aim to provide the technology and system for coconut farmers’ cooperatives to produce fruit- and vegetable-blended coconut beverage using their own raw materials,” Alvindia further said.
As part of PhilMech’s mandate under the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act, the agency must establish shared facilities for coconut farmers cooperatives and local government units through various types of equipment to allow coconut farmers to enter the value chain of the commodity.
Under the same law, the agency is also mandated to establish shared facilities for coconut farmers cooperatives and local government units using 10 percent of the P75 billion Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund. – Jed Macapagal
