Financial Times

Vegetable oils inferior to coconut oil - grower
Coconut cultivators have lashed out at suggestions to increase yields to some four billion coconuts annually saying the authorities should first solve the problems of the growers like big buyers and brokers dominating the auction.

At the 10th AGM of the Coconut Growers Association held in Colombo recently, Akmeemana Sumanapala, a grower told Anura Priyadharshana Yapa, Minister of Plantation Industries that what is needed is the insurance of a good stable price and improvement of the export procedures by broad-basing the brokering system.

Sumanapala said that over the years coconut cultivators have been cheated by the authorities saying that in 1993 when the dollar was equivalent to Rs. 44, coconuts were sold at Rs 8. The dollar is now equivalent to Rs 101 but the buying price is only Rs. 7 per nut.

Just about three brokers and about five buyers dominate the entire coconut auction and it apparently was a big racket. Even the shippers may be responsible, he said.

He urged the government to stop importing various oils such as vegetable and palm oil, which he called "imported rubbish", which were inferior to coconut oil. If they were pure vegetable oil, one could gulp bottles of them, he said asking the Coconut Development Authority, the controlling body of imports of coconut products, to intervene and stop imports.

Sumanapala said the biggest problem growers faced was not getting a good price for their nuts. Many growers who own less than three acres don't get any assistance from the state

Another member said that the assistance provided for under-plantation which was done away with should be reintroduced. Minister Yapa said that the coconut sector was vital in the national economy which brought in Rs 13 billion as foreign exchange.

He said while 2000 recorded the highest yield of 3.1 billion nuts, the past three years saw yields dropping to 2.3 billion nuts annually. The minister said he has advised the Coconut Cultivation Board (CCB) to reduce the selling price of coconut seedlings from Rs 75 to Rs 50 to encourage small growers and to offer seed coconut seedlings at Rs 10 ensuring a planting programme of 100,000 plants.

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