Guyana’s first ever coconut festival, billed for October, is poised to do more than any previous initiative to raise awareness of the importance of the product, Chairman of the National Stakeholders Forum for Coconut Development Raymond Trotz has said.
He also firmly believes that it will kick start a more deliberate national initiative to position coconuts as a more significant money-earner for the country’s agricultural sector.
As the producer of coconut water for the local market under the popular Phoenix brand, Trotz is no dreamer as far as the potential of the industry is concerned. He unhesitatingly acknowledges the existence of a potential multi-million-dollar market for locally produced coconut water in North America and Europe but says that in its present state the local coconut industry cannot hope to meet the needs of that market.
It would take, Trotz says, around 30,000 nuts to fill a 20-ft container with bottled coconut water. Filling a 40-ft container would take up to 60,000 nuts, perhaps more.
These are the volumes of product that will be required to meet the demands that are being made on the Guyana market. Trotz is under no delusions that the local industry is simply not positioned to meet those demands.
For the moment, however, he lauds the efforts of the Essequibo farmers who not only keep the industry alive but sustain the national ambition of continually increasing what, at this time, is Guyana’s decidedly modest share of the global coconut water market.
For the moment it is confined mostly to exports to a modest but growing market in Trinidad and Tobago.
Trotz believes the October 28-30 Coconut Festival under the theme ‘Awakening a Sleeping Giant,’ has the potential to be a game-changer for the local industry. Setting aside the fact that other countries in the region are likely to be represented in Georgetown in October, a circumstance that opens up the possibility for intensified cooperation in industry development, representatives of the ‘heavy hitters’ in the global industry are also making their way here for the forum. Also expected in Georgetown for the forum are representatives from Brazil, India and Mexico, three countries that lead the way in the international coconut industry.
Of considerable significance, Trotz says, is the anticipated presence at the October forum of Uron Salum, the Executive Director of the Asia and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC), an inter-governmental organization comprising states mostly in the Asia-Pacific region that account for around 90 per cent of the world’s coconut production. The APCC has been established to promote and harmonize major global initiatives in the coconut industry. The agreement establishing the APCC was concluded and signed by India, Indonesia, and the Philippines in 1968 and the community came into existence on 9 September 1969.
Trotz says that Salum’s October presentation at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre on the theme “Coconuts for Social and Economic Development” is bound to attract considerable attention among participants from the local and regional coconut industry. An anticipated invitation to Guyana to become a member of the APCC is likely to be a key moment in the history of the local sector since, he says, such a development will put us in the company of the global players in the coconut industry.
The local Coconut Festival derives from a Cooperation Agreement concluded in February between the Ministries of Agriculture and Tourism, the objective of which is to enhance awareness of the various domestic uses to which coconut and its by-products can be put as well as the export potential of the coconut.
Trotz accepts that the coconut has fallen short of realizing its potential as a major money-earner for Guyana and a key contributor to the country’s agricultural sector.
He is also of the view that the way forward has to begin by overhauling what is currently an underdeveloped sub-sector in the local agricultural sector.
The Red Palm Mite infestation may be one of the current preoccupations of the industry through Trotz believes that the absence of an effective management framework for coconut development coupled with significant neglect of coconut groves across the country have also played a role in stultifying the growth of the sector. In large areas of the country, notably on the East Coast Demerara, there is evidence of coconut groves ravaged by time and considerable neglect and which can only be resuscitated through the replacement of existing trees with new ones.
What the festival will do as well is to allow for product exhibitions, cooking and processing demonstrations, and presentations by participants in the event, a segment which Trotz says is designed to enhance public awareness of both the domestic and economic potential of the coconut industry. He points to the fact that the popularization of the industry has already led to the emergence of a wave of entrepreneurial activity that focuses on the coconut water and coconut oil industries.
He does not doubt for a moment that there is still more ground to cover but believes that the October Coconut Festival can provide just the impetus that is needed to help position Guyana to cash in on the global coconut craze.
