India becomes largest Coconut producer

KOCHI: India has emerged as the largest producer of Coconut in the world, producing 1584 crore nuts in 2006-07, pushing Indonesia and Phillipines to the second and third spots respectively, a top official said today.

Coconut production in the country has increased from 1481 crore nuts in 2005-06 to 1584 crore nuts in 2006-07, while Indonesia's production, which was 1509 crore nuts in 2002 slipped to 1498 crore nuts in 2006-07, Coconut Development Board (CDB) Chairperson Minnie Mathew told a press meet here.

Coconut production in Phillipines fell from 1406 crore nuts in 2002 to 1260 crore nuts in 2006-07.

Good monsoon in India helped increase production while 'tsunami effect' in coconut producing countries led to fall in production there.

Productivity has also shown an upward trend from 7608 nuts per hectare in 2005-06 to 8165 nuts in 2006-07. Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka account for 90.29 per cent of the area and 91.13 per cent of the production in the country, she said.

Kerala produces 6951 nuts per hectare, she said. Copra production is estimated at 7.5 lakh tonnes and coconut oil production at 4.4 lakh tonnes per annum.

She said Coconut thus makes a contribution of approximately rs 8000 crore to the GDP and rs 650 crore to the export earnings of the country,provides direct and indirect employment to more than 10 million people and provides raw material for nearly 15,000 coir processing units.

Asked if the subsidy on Palmoil will affect coconut oil, she replied in the affirmatinve. She said the board had suggested to the Kerala government to distribute Coconut oil through the Public Distribution System and urged Centre to ensure that Vansapati manufacturers use a certain percentage of coconut oil