From 1950 to 1980, the coconut industry was a vital agricultural subsector in the Caribbean.
However, from 1980 onward, production sharply declined due to pest and disease issues, competition from soybean oil, which resulted in the collapse of the copra industry.
But coconut has made a big comeback and demand for products such as coconut water, milk and oil has seen a boom.
Now, nine Caribbean countries stand to benefit from a US$3.9 million program to rejuvenate the industry.
“We recognise that the coconut subsector plays a very important role in our efforts to ensure that we have food and nutrition security very high on our list of priority areas for the development of agriculture in Saint Lucia … we want to continue to encourage the planting of acres and acres of fresh nuts and we do recognise that there is an opportunity there for employment and also for nutrition,” said Saint Lucia’s Agriculture Minister Moses Jn Baptiste.
The program is the result of collaboration between the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), the International Trade Center (
Coconut farmers say it is a needed investment and there is room for creativity and marketing in the sector.
“Presently, it's only being sold in bottles, people only sell them in bottles. We could do it with ice and glasses. We could also use the jelly to do coconut with chilli, which I learned from a Mexican friend, so there are other initiatives we could use the market the coconut products much better,” said Marva Degalleries, a female coconut farmer.
The countries which will benefit from the program are Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
In a statement, CARDI said that in recent years the demand for coconuts and coconut by-products has skyrocketed both regionally and globally:
"Many Caribbean countries have been unable to satisfy this growing demand due to setbacks experienced by industries in the early 1980s. Principal among these have been the loss of international markets for traditional products, loss of consumer confidence, ageing populations and growing pest and disease problems."
Many Caribbean countries are pursuing agricultural diversification and the coconut industry is an important part of this drive.