Coconuts exports hit the roof

Aug 17, 2010 News

By Leonard Gildarie

An Indian expert has been retained to revitalise Guyana’s coconut industry but the emphasis will not be on just the exports of the actual nuts. Rather, Dr. Shivarama Reddy has been tasked to come up with ways to ensure the country introduces new coconut-based products and even improve a project to bottle the water.
This came even as authorities are reporting coconut exports of almost 4,500 tonnes for the first six months, a staggering number when it is considered that only 2,700 tonnes were shipped for the entire 2009.
Reddy will be working closely with the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), an arm of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The scientist yesterday met with Minister Robert Persaud, NARI’s Director, Dr. Oudho Homenauth, and General Manager of the Hope Estate, Rabindranath Persaud.
The technical official will have to map the way forward for Guyana’s coconut industry and suggest practical value-added products, in addition to the traditional oil and coconut water.
Guyana had requested the help of the Indian government and Dr. Reddy is expected to stay for two years.
Already, to revive the Hope Estate coconut farm, the Ministry of Agriculture has plugged an estimated $9M to equip and modernise facilities in a plan to establish coconut water bottling there. However, Dr. Reddy will have to examine the project and possibly improve on it, working both with farmers and the private sector.
One of the main objectives of the project, according to Persaud, would be looking at ways to further boost production.
He acknowledged that the weakest links are the product development and technical support aspects, which hopefully will be addressed with the doctor’s input.
In Guyana, an estimated 20,000 hectares are under coconut cultivation with many farms abandoned in the ’80s as the demand for the oil dropped.
However, with pharmaceutical companies and others realising the value of the nut, the export demand has surged within recent years with many farms now being revived, and even the soft drink companies being invited to come onboard to invest in bottling the water.
According to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, exports peaked at the highest in recent years in March with 953 tonnes. This fell to 758 tonnes in April but climbed to over 900 tonnes the following month.
Coconut exports dramatically increased almost tenfold last year, earning $120M as compared to almost $16M in 2008.
According to figures tabulated by the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (New GMC) earlier this year, more than 2,700 tonnes of coconut was shipped out. Only 268 tonnes were recorded for the previous year. In 2009, exports of coconut products, which included coconuts, copra, water, crude oil and choka, saw earnings reaching over $500M when compared to almost $200M the previous year.
Copra exports also jumped 60 per cent to 3,249 tonnes earning $249M while coconut water exports stood at 32 tonnes in 2008 when compared to the 112 tonnes achieved last year, earning $10M.
However, coconut crude oil saw a major jump with $145M earned, as against $36M in 2008. This year, coconut continued to be an area in which the exports seem to be hitting the roof. In March alone, 953 tonnes was shipped out earning almost $79M. Only six tonnes were exported in March last year.
Earlier this year, General Manager of the New GMC, Nizam Hassan, said that the exported coconuts were used by Trinidad, Antigua and the Dominican Republic to make canned milk, copra and other value-added products.
India, a country with a 3000-year tradition in coconut cultivation, is one of the leading producers of coconuts in the world, accounting for 13 billion nuts every year. It is highly rated for producing one of the best grade milling copra in the world and yielding high grade coconut oil known for its aroma and flavour.
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Public forum on Guyana’s human rights obligations today

– Extra judicial killings, corporal punishment, gay rights on agenda

Members of the public are being invited to a civil society consultation on Guyana’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of its human rights obligations.
This consultation is being convened by the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD) as a public discussion.
The event is scheduled for this today from 4:30pm at the Brickdam Presbytery, opposite the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Brickdam.
Guyana is presently under consideration for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process by the Human Rights Council. The first part of the process concluded at the eighth session of the working group on the UPR this past May in Geneva.
The UPR working group proposed 112 recommendations for Guyana to improve its human rights situation. The Government of Guyana accepted 57 of these recommendations and said it will consider the remaining 55 recommendations and respond to the Council by its 15th plenary session next month.
The vast majority of the 55 recommendations relate to key issues: extrajudicial killings, abolition of the death penalty, banning corporal punishment and measures to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons.
Heading the Guyana delegation to Geneva in May, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, told the UPR working group that these issues require “widespread consultations.”
SASOD said it has convened this discussion to contribute to the consultation process. Dr. Arif Bulkan from the University of the West Indies Rights Advocacy Project (U-RAP), based at the Cave Hill Campus’ Faculty of Law, will lead the discussion on the extrajudicial killings and the death penalty; Vidyaratha Kissoon will discuss the work being done to change the public attitudes to corporal punishment; and Namela Henry will discuss the issues facing LGBT persons in Guyana.
The proposed outcome of the consultation is to develop a position which will feed into the consultation process which the Government of Guyana has committed to before the Human Rights Council, SASOD stated.
The United States in mid-July called for Guyana to investigate reports that members of the security forces, sometimes employing criminals, murdered hundreds of people during the last 17 years. In November last year, opposition political parties released a file listing 449 alleged extrajudicial killings in the English-speaking South American country between 1993 and 2009, which many blamed on an elite police unit called the “Black Clothes” squad.
The report also accused the government of equipping and employing a criminal gang of killers, known as the Phantom Squad, in an attempt to control a cocaine trade-fueled crime wave in 2002.
President Bharrat Jagdeo had said the report is politically motivated and includes some people who died in car crashes and others who are listed as missing persons.
At the May meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Britain and Canada called for an independent inquiry into the accusations of death squad killings and other rights abuses.
The government has said it was unlikely to set up an independent commission because it had not seen sufficient evidence to merit an inquiry.
The Phantom Squad was believed to work largely at the behest of self-confessed drug trafficker Roger Khan and was said to include members of the Guyana Police Force. The Black Clothes Squad was set up to deal with violent crime, but was disbanded following the allegations that it carried out extrajudicial killings.
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Keeping a tight rein on traffic offenders